excessive attic heat (insurance, house, contractor)

[wyldeyez2]

My attic is warmer than some of the rooms in my old house and I have a bad problem with ice dams. Some of the heating (flexible) ducts are up there. Not sure what I should do or where I should start. I think the soffits are blocked and am pretty sure that the ducts are leaking.

[dreamhunter65]

Get a new vent with a fan control installed then check all the duct work.Not good for the shingles or the roof is water gets underneath. Deicing a roof is dangerous also so do not try yourself as need a steam cleaner to cut it out and get of roof and steeper the roof the worse it is to do.

Unsure if a wrap for flexible heat ducts but could wrap in insulation stop heat loss.

[MidwesternBookWorm]

Although I know that many of us in Wisconsin have older homes, it is possible that you would get more responses over in the General Forums section of City-Data. There is one forum devoted specifically to questions like yours, and I have gotten some very helpful replies there to house-related conundrums that have puzzled me.

Try going to http://www.city-data.com/forum/house/ and either doing a search on your topic, or else move your thread over there. I suspect that you'd get lots of suggestions and assistance there.

Good luck, and I hope you can find the answer you are seeking!

[limapie]

Originally Posted by wyldeyez2

My attic is warmer than some of the rooms in my old house and I have a bad problem with ice dams. Some of the heating (flexible) ducts are up there. Not sure what I should do or where I should start. I think the soffits are blocked and am pretty sure that the ducts are leaking.

We had the same thing. We were blessed with a hail storm so the insurance
company benefit was a new roof and new siding. We loved out siding as it was heavy gage steal and did not really need to replace it. So we put the
siding money toward the new roof.

We had the roofing contractor install a ridge vent. Go to your local hardward and see what that is.

If your eave vents are blocked....your house will rot. That moisture absolutely needs to escape. The flow is under your eaves, through the eave vents, and then up through a venting fan or else a ridge vent.
If you don't have flow, you will rot. Unblock the vents. Horrible job.
Do it in the spring when it isn't too cold nor too warm.

Make sure your ceilings have a vapor barrier. If the plaster, paint or whatever is on your ceilings is cracking and falling off...you do not have a vapor barrier. Huge job to fix. It means removing the plaster board from the ceilings room by room. Once to beams, cover with plastic film, then put up more wall board, tape seams, plaster cracks, prime, repaint.
Horrible job. I did this in my bathroom. Damned former owners/crappy builder didn't have vapor barrier in bathroom. Ceiling was flaking off, paint wouldn't stay....horrible. Finally had to strip everything down to the beams and just do the job correctly.

Insulation bat should lay inbetween beams and then another layer ontop of the beams 90 degrees to beams. Make sure eave area is tapered down
to allow the air flow. Don't get that blown in stuff. Horrible stuff. You don't want this mess. You can't control it from going down in the eave.

[dreamhunter65]

See more and more ridgevent going in. They do have the thermostatically controlled vents also so only open when temp is at a certain point. Clean that soffit like was said and if have rain gutters it is best to remove before starts freezing to much as will build a ice dam.

[limapie]

Some the vents require electricity. I'm not a fan of electricity on attic vents and fans. I personally believe it is simply better to let nature move the air. Hot air rises and goes into the peak. If you have a ridge vent, then it will escape, air will move and flow normally.