By alferz
Hey all, looking for some advice for ventilation in my 1935 bungalow style 1 1/2 story house. Currently the small side attics have no ventilation at all and being in Sacramento, California the heat upstairs is stifling, and ventilation is one of the things I want to improve to mitigate that. The second story has 4 separate side attic areas separated from the living space by knee walls that are insulated and air sealed. I want to cut in vents in the siding under the eave (no soffits) for intake but I need help deciding how to do the exhaust vents. I know in a perfect world I would use a ridge vent, however the house has a 17 year old roof over OSB sheathing, and whoever installed it did not include any air baffles in the cathedral ceiling (there are R-13 or maybe R-19 batts, but there is no space for air movement between the sheetrock, batts, and OSB sheathing). So my plan is to place the exhaust vent in the side attic itself, which is well away from the ridge since I’m really not in a position to tear the ceiling apart to install a ridge vent. Is it best to use gable vents, or use one roof vent at the highest point in the middle of each side attic? My concern with the gable vent, is that I would only be able to vent one side of the attic and there would be little to no cross breeze. I calculated my net free vent area needed for the 4 attics as 120, 84, 64 and 58 sq inches split between intake and exhaust using the 1/150 rule. Anyone have a suggestion on how best to vent these spaces? Should I even vent them at all?
From: http://www.doityourself.com/forum/basements-attics-crawl-spaces/493513-side-attic-ventilation.html

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