10 Ideas to reduce attic heat
How well does your attic retain and release heat? Attic heat affects your entire house. Attics can get very warm in the summertime and in the winter they may suck heat from your home. So what’s the best way to reduce attic heat?
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Many companies want you to believe that there is only one solution to fixing the temperature in your attic. But no one product will necessarily make your home more energy efficient. Here are ten different ways to reduce your attic heat temperature and save you money.
- Use a thermostatically controlled roof mounted ventilator. It will help to keep the attic much cooler in the summertime. The thermostat will usually start at 95 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the temperature that the attic fan usually starts at.
- Using insulation only keeps the attic’s heat from traveling through your home. But by adding powered attic fans, you will draw more air into the attic. While it does help to reduce the heat in your attic, putting these fans in your attic costs more because of the loss of conditioned air. The air you lose from the attic is then drawn into your home from the outside, which will cause your cooling bill to go up.
- Radiant barrier: This is a coating material that gets sprayed onto the outside of your roof to help reduce the amount of heat that is radiated into your attic. The radiant barrier is shown to reduce about 68% of the heat that is being radiated into the attic. This will keep your attic cooler, which will reduce the cooling load on your home.
Vents
- Continuous ridge vent: This type of vent runs along the entire ridge of your roof. It is placed at the highest point of your roof so that the hot air rises to get out. However, for best results, you must have sufficient vents to allow for the free airflow. The biggest downside to this type of cooling system, though, is that you must install it when you are installing either a new roof or building a new home. This type of venting wouldn’t work properly on an already existing roof.
- Standard “turtle-back” vents: These are the most common vents for people to have and are very effective when enough of them are installed. These vents can be placed on an existing roof and will allow for a lot of airflow when properly installed.
- Check for restricted vents. Your vents can get clogged from dirt, rust, or insulation that was blown in from the attic. Make sure they are all open and will allow for the maximum amount of air to pass through
Leaks
- Seal all attic air leaks. There are probably many small air leaks in your attic space which can cause a major source of heat loss in many homes. Here’s how to locate the leak spots and plug them without spending a lot of money.
- Seal the opening hatch with The Energy Guardian
- Shade landscaping: Planting shade landscaping carefully and with precision around the home can help keep the attic significantly cooler.
- Ductwork cleaning: Clean your ductwork it will keep your system from overworking and reducing air quality all around.
The best time to make these types of repairs to your attic is during the wintertime when it is much cooler and a lot more bearable to fix the cooling in your attic. Just make sure you think ahead before the summertime because many people don’t think they’ll need any sort of repairs until the problem is already there.
So what are you waiting for? Start saving money on your energy costs by cooling down your attic.
More about Attics
Such helpful information!
This is so important. We redid our ductwork and vents when we needed to replace our AC system. It helps tremendously.
I’m definitely going to have my husband read this article. Our attic is hot in the summer and cold in the winter! I’m sure it’s affecting our electric and gas bills.
These are some really great ideas. With Summer here, I wish I would have thought about this last fall.. I will this year! Thank you!
These are great ideas I would have never thought of! Thanks for sharing!!
We’ve got one of those homes where we’d love to release a little heat. 115 Degrees in the summer is common. So landscaping and vents/whole house fans work best for us. Your tips on maintenance for the vents are fantastic! I wouldn’t have thought of that.
Thanks, Larry! Pinned for later too
Awesome! Thanks
This is a great idea! Thanks for sharing!
My hubby needs to see this – our roof/attic line seems to be a heat trap!!
I love your articles. Always so concise and informative. I wish I had your blog when I was a single mom 🙂
That’s great to hear. Thank you.
My husband made sure we had the continuous roof vent on all of our houses when the roofs were redone! Great tips!
I am so clueless when it comes to stuff like this, thank you for sharing, its super helpful!
Nice suggestions! So many don’t give their attics a second glance when it comes to being energy efficient.
Great tips to reduce the heat in your attic, it gets seriously roasting hot here in S Florida! Love the thermostat controlled ventilator makes great sense, thanks so much for sharing more helpful tips 🙂
This is a big problem in our house! Thanks for the tips!
Timely post. We were cleaning out the attic this weekend and wondering how we could reduce the heat. Thanks to your post we have the information we need. Thanks!
Great to hear. Glad it was timed right. 🙂
We just finished our attic about five months ago. I could have used this information!!! Great stuff. Thanks for sharing.
This is so helpful! We all need this kind of information. I have just had my basement foam sealed – had not considered my attic. I do know that the attic is key for temperature modulation and have not heard of all of these options. Keep up the good work.
Great job on getting the basement sealed. It’s great to seal up all areas. Thanks
I’m in a rental and have never seen the attic space. It’s an older home, though and I’m sure could use some help.
Attics in older homes can hold all kinds of fun surprised good or bad. 🙂
Great list of suggestions! We are currently planning an attic renovation with the intention of using that space as a quiet room or a reading or meditation space.
I have always wanted one of those. That will be fun! Best of luck.
I always enjoy your posts. I learn so much and feel much smarter when it comes to home care.
Thank you
I have a 7 year old home in North Carolina with a truss roof structure, ridge and soffit vents. Which is a better improve heat dissipation in the attic, a solar attic fan or install a radiant barrier? Do you have an opinion?
Handyman Larry says he believes both are great but for cost purposes, I would start with the solar fan as it is by far the less expensive and will still make a difference.
do you have to replace roof shingles to install solar vents? We have 2000 sq.ft. home- and THE ATTIC IS SOOO HOT!!! LIKE A FURNACE. How many solar vents are needed? Large ones? Must be professionally installed.. HOW MUCH?
I would recommend a ventilator gable roof vent fan so cutting holes in your roof and creating potentioal roof leaks is not necessary and the installation is fairly simple and the solar panel can be installed to the facia instead of the rooftop. As far as how many in my opinion the more the air flow in the attic the better so I would personally install however many can fit, sometimes only one will fit on the vent. Here is a link to one of the type of vents I would recommend.