My house does not have soffit vents. The overhang at the eaves is too small. The ceiling leaks were sealed up by an HVAC company about 10 years ago. They also blew in insulation to an R30 level in the attic. There are gable vents (22” rounds) on both ends. A roofing company just put a new roof on and added a ridge vent. Am I ok to leave it alone? Do I need to put in a gable fan for air intake?
How to increase airflow through an attic without soffit vents
atticgablesoffitventventilation
Related Solutions
In a nutshell, yes, soffit vents prevent moisture from doing bad things to your home. Greebo is spot on, you want soffit vents for your air intake.
Without a continuous flow of outside air, the attic heat in the winter will melt ice and snow at the top of the roof, which will flow down and refreeze when it reaches the cooler bottom of the roof. This forms an ice dam, backing water up into your shingles and roof, resulting in some potentially expensive damage.
You also want to draw air in from the soffits which are on the underside of the roof and exhaust it at the top, which requires at least the same, if not more soffit vent area than you have ridge/gable vents. This prevents wind blown moisture from being driven up into a ridge vent and into your attic. If there is a positive flow of air out the ridge vent from the soffits, this minimizes the risk of the ridge vent becoming an intake vent.
And finally any moisture that does accumulate in your attic will be quickly vented away by the airflow from the soffit to the ridge vents. This includes any moisture from the outside reaching the dew point and from any moisture from your home that escapes into your attic from any cracks.
Your inspector is correct. Air should enter at the soffit, and exit at either roof vents or a ridge vent. With the current setup air could be entering either the soffit vents or the roof vents, and exiting either the roof vents or the ridge vent. Since your soffits are covered with insulation (because there are no baffles), I'd guess that air is entering the roof vents and exiting the ridge vent. This means only the air near the top of the roof is cycling, which can lead to problems with the roof including a shortened roof life.
In my house there were originally roof vents in the roof above my garage. When they did a reroof they switched to a ridge vent, and as you can see they covered over the old roof vent openings.
On a side note: Inspectors are hired by you, and work for you. They have no reason to lie or mislead you, since they will not gain in any way from it. In fact, you can probably trust an inspector more than a random person on the internet. Seeing how you paid the inspector for advice, while I'm doing this for free.
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Best Answer
I live in Oregon and gable vents work fine here if you needed more flow I would suggest a solar exhaust fan in the middle of the house to create more flow but if you don’t have excess heat your system is working fine. I have added exhaust fans to my homes as it reduces my cooling costs.