Roof Ventilation For Vaulted Ceilings

Chimneys recessed lights plumbing chases and holes drilled through top plates for plumbing or wiring should all be sealed figure 2 53 at left.

Roof ventilation for vaulted ceilings.

A key benefit of venting the attic is that the approach is the same regardless of how creative your architect got with the roof. Properly insulated cathedral ceiling assemblies incorporating air and vapor retarders can. Proper ventilation even with the attic bypasses sealed and effective vapor retarders installed proper ventilation is essential to prevent moisture problems in cathedral ceilings. In a vaulted roof a ridge vent serves as the outtake or exhaust vent.

Depending on your house interior and roof framing design cathedral ceiling ventilation can be treated as an independent or attic ventilation related condition. A ridge vent features an open strip along the length of the ridge where the air that enters the soffit can escape. The air space above the insulation will provide some relief in the event of a roof leak even without ventilation. Penetrations roof ventilation challenges common air leak points in ceilings pay special attention to penetrations in the ceiling plane particularly in cathedral ceilings.

Because the roof isn t in play here it doesn t matter how many hips valleys dormers or gables there are. As for how much insulation to use the minimum would be a 2 inch board which will get you about r 12 plus a little extra from the foil facing. It s better than having the water sandwiched between the sheathing and spray foam. Vaulted ceilings can be constructed by either stick framing which means attaching each joist and rafter individually or by setting roof trusses that come engineered from a truss manufacturer.

A balanced system of soffit and ridge ventilation provides continuous ventilation of hot moist air at the hottest point of the roof. These assemblies pose unique ventilation problems. In mixed climates ventilation serves either role depending on the season. Ventilation of vaulted ceilings vaulted ceilings sometimes referred to as cathedral ceilings occur in steep slope roof assemblies in which there is no attic space between a ceiling and roof deck.