# Do I need the gable vents



## bjakeski (Aug 10, 2010)

Hello all,
I'm hoping you can help me. I one a bi-level in northeast PA. The home is 8 years old. We have gas heat and central air. The home initially had a ridge vent, soffit vents and two gable vents, one on the west side of the home and one on the front in what i can only call a dormer. The home has a scuttle, in a walk in closet adjacent to the bathrrom and bedroom. This is covered with just a piece of drywall and some batt insulation over it. Several years ago we noticed mold on the roof plywood and called our contractor. He added another gable vent on the east side of the home. The mold persisted and increased all on the east front of the attic. We called a mold remediation company who told us the bathroom vent was into the soffit on the east front of the home. The contractor vented this out the east side of the attic and we had the mold treated. He told us we should remove all of our attic storage which we did. The mold continued and actually began to appear on the back east side of the attic. We recently spoke with another mold remediatir who told us that the gable vents are our problem. He stated that with the ridge and soffit vents the gable vents are causing the air to swirl and not vent properly. We're hoping to sell our home but need to fix this mold issue. Should we have the gable vents closed off? If not how should we proceed? Does anyone know a good contractor in NEPA that could look at the issue for us? Should we also continue not to store anything in the attic? Thanks for any and all information you can provide.

Bill


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## justintime08 (Nov 14, 2008)

If you have the correct ridge and soffit venting that is all you need. You are short circuiting the air by having gable vents, ridge vents, soffit vents, and dormer vents. What you need to do is to seal up all vents except for the ridge and soffit vents. The air needs to intake from the soffit, travel up the underside of the sheathing and out the ridge. When the warmer air moves out of the ridge it will naturally pull air in the soffits.


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## bjakeski (Aug 10, 2010)

The soffit vents we have consists of 3 panels/ foot and are about 10 inches wide. Every third panel is perforated. The soffit runs the length of the roof, 40 feet on each side. The ridge vent also runs the length of each roof ridge, the 40 feet plus the entire length of the front dormer. The ridge vent is covered with some type of filter paper. I am able to see light through the paper. There are also styrofoam baffles between the rafters, down to the soffits and i can see light in each of these. Does this sound like adequated ventilation if the gable vents are clsoed?


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## justintime08 (Nov 14, 2008)

Yes, you should be fine from what you are saying. You just need to seal off any other vents that you have up there like gable vents and mushroom vents etc. These will short circuit your air circulation. Ridge and Soffit vents are all you should need, make sure that insulation is not covering the intake for the soffits.


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## Gary in WA (Mar 11, 2009)

"The soffit vents we have consists of 3 panels/ foot and are about 10 inches wide. Every third panel is perforated." -------- Grossly under-vented. 4" panels..... if all three panels were vented, you would have 3.9 NFVA. You have 1.3 NFVA, where you should have 9 NFVA per foot to match the ridge for a balanced system. You have 1/7 of needed. 
http://files.buildsite.com/dbderived-f/owenscorning/derived_files/derived92755.pdf
http://www.airvent.com/homeowner/products/intakeSoffit-specs.shtml That is figuring without a vapor barrier on ceiling.

Be safe, Gary


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