What to know when buying Roof Ventilation
Is it same same or different?
by Isa Stralian
When you buy roof ventilation, you will be presented with of two principal promoters of roof ventilation products apart from the hardware stores.
They will be installation companies and insulation companies who source their roof ventilation products from distributors of roof ventilation products.
Note the two….Installation and Insulation, neither of which know anything about ventilation because their objective is to sell you their product, and it’s not ventilation.
The Installation companies will offer their ‘expertise’ by way of installation and accept no responsibility for the performance and durability, and you will feel somewhat comforted when they tell you they’ve installed thousands.
The Insulation companies use roof ventilation products as freebie sweeteners saying much the same as the installation companies.
The manufacturer on the other hand lives or dies on the quality of their product, both in the performance and quality of construction.
Roof ventilation product(s) are advertised it as being suitable for a whole gamut of things. The consumer presumes, ‘this must be what I need’ ………or
it’s On Sale Reduced Price……Big mistake
Self Deception
The representative might allude you to believing that their roof ventilator is suitable for all and in sundry but they have you focus on the number they’ve installed.
You presume it’s suitable because you want it to be, you don’t want to devote any more time than need be and the word ‘ventilator’ is spelt the same way.
So what difference can the there be?
That responsibility falls on you…..
History in building science as regards to ventilation, particularly roof ventilation, has always said that that the roof ventilator size on the roof must be proportional to the air ingress.
Had you known this from the outset the outcome would be different.
So what happens is you install the roof ventilator, and then discover you need another another because one was never going to be enough.
Then you become aware that the type of eaves vents are inadequate.
Proportional value goes out the window because you didn’t quite understand the relationship of one to the other.
It’s like a bank account, you’re only going to get out what you put in, so in is just as critical as out.
The old standard approach was ingress (eaves vents) around the eaves and exit from one centrally located, well sized roof ventilator.
Today it seems as the more the better.
Suitability
Nowhere does it say that you need to place (roof ventilators) all over the roof for greater efficiency in roof ventilation.
No! this was purely a marketing gimmick foisted on the masses who were ripe for the taking.
Buying roof ventilation
The fact that most roof ventilators available in hardware stores are too small for most residential applications matters not as the responsibility of the purchase lays with the consumer.
Buyer beware!
So you buy one….doesn’t quite work the way you expected….if you enquire, you find out it was never going to do the job on a home of your size… so then you put up another to justify the purchase of the first.
Meanwhile your wife, who happens to be house proud, is starting to complain about the house looking like a factory roof.
And as with the blind leading the blind, you up with several on your roof instead of just one larger.
The reality is that one large roof ventilator, in a common attic area, works far more efficiently than several smaller.
And your house wouldn’t end up looking like a factory roof not to mention that a passive roof ventilator has proven to be better over centuries.
The rotary/ turbine/ whirlybird type was developed to remove welding fumes out of factories during the winter.
Today the roof ventilator is used as an inducement, or freebie if you will, to entice a prospective client into using the roofing company’s services.
A case of something for nothing….Where people still believe ‘FREE” means no cost to them.
Everything comes at a cost, especially the freebies