So, after talking with a lot of roofers of late the discussion to move away from the turtle-style of attic venting in favor of ridge venting came up. If ridge venting is chosen, the roofer needed to know if the doghouses were real or not. I knew they were real–haven been in my attic many times. Then the after-thought came to me why on earth did this builder waste time, money, and effort building real doghouses and installing real windows into them consider the macro-philosophy of being the cheapest and worse builder in the first place. It puzzles me. It isn’t like I’d ever even try to finish out the attic, with the bedrooms being 8.75′ tall and the closets and hallways being 8′ as to make the attic landscape more like a moonscape with the blown fiberglass insulation.
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Replies
Maybe he thought the attic was good enough for storage, and the dormers would let light in. and maybe add a bit of storage space.
They werw probably on the stock plans the builder bought, so they liekly were built without much thoughtas to the "why" of it.
Tract building often has a lot of "just because" in it; like why put up a swathe of veneer brick just because there is a bay window; or dormers to nothing at all. Or hanging valleys or ridges since the roof was never imagined as a final, finished item, bot lashed up as quickly as possible to finish the elevation drawings. (Been to that game, still jaded, cynical, and bitter.)
Obviously it is just there for looks. I'm not seeing that a "real" doghouse dormer is any more expensive than the fake. Re the window, no doubt windows are expensive but OTOH I haven't a fake window that looked passable. OK - maybe I haven't seen any fake windows....
Nuke - a few other thoughts
Nuke – a few other thoughts about the doghouse dormers: If a roof is stick framed with rafters, the doghouse dormers are very often real. If it is a truss framed roof, the dormers are often faux or overframed. Overframed means the main roof is built and then the dormers are framed on top of that.
I think the root of your question was related to venting the dormers. Not sure what is common practice elsewhere, but whenever there is a false gable or false dormer, I always have my framers cut out (or leave out) the roof sheathing under the gable/dormer so that a dead space is not created, meaning that ridge vents installed over these areas are in fact functional. The other thing, is that in the case of dormers, it is most often much more convenient to have access to the inside of the dormer in order to facilitate the installation of the window(s).
If I remember correctly you have a hip roof (?). If that is the case, you need every little bit of ridge venting you can get.
So - what kind of venting did you end up going with? Often times it is difficult to get proper ridge ventilation on a hip roof...