It all goes back to the new roof I had put on this summer. When they replaced the roof, they swapped out the old turbine vents for passive vents, then added some soffit vents, telling me the new system should be equivalent to the old. Wrong. My second floor was at least five degrees warmer on hot days than it had been before. On the hottest days, in a few spots, you could smell the superheated damp air seeping down from the attic.
I went back and forth with the roofer several times, trying to figure out what was wrong. Since I hadn't had this problem with the previous roof, I figured that missing turbine vents were probably the root of the problem. After several iterations, he begrudgingly agreed. He'd remove the passive vents and reinstall turbine vents, as long as I paid the material cost for the new vents. Grumbling beneath my breath, I accepted the offer. I mean, if they'd just done it right in the first place... Never mind. No need to go there.
Which left the question of the new soffit vents - were they doing what they needed to do, and letting air into the attic? I guessed not, since I knew the attic was full of blown insulation, and the roofer hadn't sent someone up there to make sure the vents were clear. I brought this up to him, and for only another $350, he said he'd send someone up there to check things out. This is where I drew the line. No way was I going to pay that much money for an hour's work. Mostly because I didn't trust them to do the job right.
Which is how, last week after the weather cooled, I found myself hauling out the ladder and a screw gun, loosening the attic hatch, and climbing up there to see what was going on.
As soon as I stuck my head into the space, it was clear why the venting hadn't worked. Sure enough, insulation was blocking the soffit vents, which meant there wasn't any air getting into the attic for the passive roof vents to let out. ("Told ya so!", chanted my inner two year-old.)
I'd come prepared. I was properly dressed, covered from head to toe, except for my cheeks - long sleeves, long pants, hat, goggles, breathing mask, gloves, headlamp. I had baffles to clear the air flow, screws and an impact driver to hold them in place, and a rake to move the insulation around.
Using a couple of handy boards left behind by my electrician, I took a deep breath and started body surfing my way across the attic, making sure I had a good base so I didn't put a foot wrong and add 'fix the hole in the ceiling' to my to-do list. A good core workout, I told myself.
I'd scouted the soffit vent locations from outside, so knew about where to find them, and by turning off my headlamp, I could see a glimmer of light making its way inside where each was trying to do its job. I made my way to one after another of the three spots, raked piles of fluffy stuff out of the way, kinda-sorta put a baffle in place, and moved on. I gotta admit - my work wasn't pretty. It wasn't precise and it wasn't clean, but I didn't care. I don't think anyone's going to go up there and check it any time soon, and I got the job done.
Since I was up there (what the heck), I took some time to see if I could figure out why the smell of the attic had been coming down to the second floor. Once I'd wormed my way to that area, which, of course, was at the far end of the attic, the issue was clear. Someone had pushed the insulation to the side to do some work, and had forgotten to push it back - there was virtually no insulation covering that part of the ceiling. It took just a minute, using my handy-dandy rake, to fix THAT problem, and I was done.
I turned around and surfed my way back to the access port, stopping to rake a pile of insulation across all the bare spots I encountered as I crawled along.
As I climbed down the ladder, I checked the time. It had taken me a little over an hour to do the job. For once, my time guesstimate for a job had been spot on. Thinking about the $350 I hadn't paid the roofer, I gave myself a mental pat on the back. Who says I can't make the big bucks!
Since the hot days have passed for this year, I won't know if the problem has been resolved until next summer, but I'm not concerned. I'm pretty sure I got it fixed. That's one down!
No, don't call me to see if I'll check your attic. No, not even if you'll pay me the big bucks. Just, no.
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