Attic Space Moisture: What Causes It and How to Get Rid of It

Why Does My Attic Have Condensation?

• Attic condensation usually transpires for the duration of winter season & spring months when heat, moist air from the major residing place rises into the attic house. When that heat, moist air meets the chilly underside of your roof’s deck, condensation happens. This can also be enormously exacerbated if there are swings in the local climate likely from significant heat climate rains to fast chilly temperature overnight. The already pretty humid airmass will consider time to dry out, not only outdoors your home but inside your attic
• In the wintertime, attic condensation generally turns into frost, which does not pose any risk. Nonetheless, when the frost melts, it turns back again into condensation, which can make everything it touches moist – typically insulation and wood.
• Throughout wintertime, your household really should have about a 35% to 40% humidity degree. If your humidity ranges are greater, condensation can take place inside of the dwelling and can be witnessed on windows, partitions, and ceilings. And based on the house, even 35% can be too a lot.
• Some prevalent sources for attic moisture are showers, dishwashers, dryers, cooking, washing machines, baths, humidifiers, and other heat-manufacturing devices. Properties with a good deal of people today residing in the location and even plants will insert to this as perfectly. In most situations, these sources do not create too much dampness, on the other hand, if a dwelling is quite airtight and/or if ventilation is poor – it can undoubtedly contribute tremendously.

What Brings about Attic Condensation?

• Bad attic insulation and/or ventilation
• Improperly vented toilet and dryer exhausts that are routed to the attic (instead of outdoors)
• Really should the link of a bathroom vent turn out to be detached from roof exhaust stage. this would significantly lead to the attic humidity

How Do I Know if I Have Attic Condensation?

There are a number of signs you can glance for to figure out if you have attic condensation:

1. Symptoms h2o has (or is) trickling down the walls
2. Musky, moist odor
3. Mildew
4. Rust
5. Dark stains
6. Damp or moist insulation
7. Damp or wet wood
8. Drinking water marks on the ground
9. Humidity on glass home windows

How to Get Rid of Attic Condensation

In buy to stop condensation (and frost) from establishing in your attic you want to do 4 points:

• Reduce or cut down air leakage into the attic space
  • Relying on which city you are living in, Mass Preserve will Air Seal any penetrations you might have in your ceiling these kinds of as Can lights, Toilet followers, or any other penetrations into the attic place at nearly minimal to no cost.
  • Attic Entry: this is the major and most common issue we see when inspecting a roof when we glance in the attic when the access is not appropriately sealed and insulated
    • Pull Down Stairs: Have to have to have an insulated box in excess of the stairs to protect against humidity and warmth escaping from the residence into the attic. Mass Help you save Can provide these or you can even obtain a single at Lowes: Owens Corning Attic Stairway Insulator II 40-in Insulation Supports for roughly $58
    • Stroll Up Attic: A complete sized entry door is put in but not the appropriate doorway! The door separating the leading floor from the attic place must be an insulated exterior door that is also tightly sealed to avert heat and dampness from escaping the household into the attic.
  • Boost attic insulation
    • Most households do not have adequate insulation allowing for heat to escape by the ceiling and into the attic room. Contacting Mass Conserve can tremendously lower if not eliminate this challenge by adding in supplemental blown in insulation around your present insulation at practically minimal to no cost.
  • Improve attic ventilation
    • If you have vented soffit or drip edge, make sure any fiberglass or blown in insulation is not blocking the air intake as this could considerably cut down the house’s capability to breathe
    • Make positive any seen ridge vents are appropriately reduce in and not blocked
    • If Gable vents are made use of fairly than ridge vents are there plenty of exhaust for the house to breathe?
  • Be certain lavatory & dryer vents are correctly routed outside
    • Lots of residences we have viewed vent their bathroom followers into the soffit or even a sidewall.
    • If you have vented soffit or drip edge, the Massachusetts Constructing Code obviously states that you are unable to vent anything OUT of your attic room inside 3’ of air coming IN to your attic room as the property could pull that moist air back into the attic space.

Did the Set up of My New Roof Lead to This Difficulty?

• Each roofer will get this problem in the Fall as factors promptly begin to get chilly and the response is almost constantly NO
• If your household was already leaking humidity into your attic place, then the addition of a new roof would not change this. Only if the amount of ventilation into/out of your attic modified, could this exacerbate the challenge.

I’ve By no means Noticed This Difficulty Before!

• Only now, for the reason that you have had a new roof installed, are you far more very likely to check out your attic room for probable leaks and identify things that have been previously present in the past still not noticed.
• Fast modifications in temperature and humidity outside the residence can significantly alter the natural environment within the attic, earning this visible 1 day but not the next.
• These problems in the Northeast are most frequently found right after a fast chilly entrance follows moist hefty rainstorms in which the outside air is presently really humid and then turns cold promptly