How to know if the home has soffit vents

atticventilation

My home is located at illinois,which is built at 1958. I can see 8 roof vents on my root but one contractor say I need to install soffit vents as well.

But I can see some slot on my soffits actually as below:
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And from the attic, I can not see if it's connected to the soffit area or not since it's too tight and I almost can not get a clear picture:

enter image description here

Is it necessary to open my soffits and create a hole to connect to soffit vents? I am thinking about it should be done during building the house, but not sure old house always has such issue!

Best Answer

That's unvented soffit. The vented variety has a pattern of slots punched into it on the flats. My guess is that there's plywood underneath, and it wasn't deemed necessary to open it up before covering it with maintenance-free aluminum soffit.

You may be able to do this to get venting in place:

  1. Remove the aluminum soffit by detaching the fascia and pulling the nails along the bottom edge that secure the soffit panels.
  2. Cut a channel in the original wood soffit. Whatever you can conveniently remove with a circular saw will probably be adequate. It's a messy, gritty, upside-down job, so have some eye and respiratory protection on hand.
  3. Reinstall the aluminum soffit and fascia, but replace every other panel with vented soffit. You could also use all vented panels, or the variety that's partially vented. Since you (presumably) don't have taller energy heels on your rafters, that'll be plenty of vent area.
  4. In the attic, install vent baffles. These create a channel up over the wall plate and along the roof sheathing, past the level of the insulation.
  5. Install additional vents near the ridge to meet modern standards based on attic area. Do not install gable vents or vents lower on the roof. You want as complete an airflow path along the roof as possible.

Note that this would need to be done on eaves (at wall level), but not on rakes (on gable ends).

As a lower-cost (but somewhat less effective) solution, Use a hole saw to cut through both the aluminum and plywood soffits, then install round louvers every 6-12 inches.

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