My home had to be reroofed after only about 10 years. This was found to be due to excessive heat build up in the attic. This heat build up has been addressed with the installation of a ridge vent as well as additional vent openings around the house under the eaves. One of the locations for an additional vent fell right above my 3 ton A/C compressor. At first I thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and install it thinking that when the compressor kicked on, the fan would creat an air flow through the vent and thus help move the air in the attic up to the ridge vent. However, I am not certain how much moisture fan forced air coming out of an A/C compressor has and did not want to take a chance of introducing any moisture into the attic and ending up with mold city. Therefore, I am holding off installing this particular vent at this time. Any advice would be appreciated.
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Replies
My home had to be reroofed after only about 10 years. This was found to be due to excessive heat build up in the attic.
This is commonly stated by roofers. I have a file about 1+1/2" thick with articles by researchers all about roof venting. The worst some researchers have said is that an unvented roof might take a few per cent off the life of a roof. One response in the Q&A section of the Journal of Light Construction by one of the most widely known researchers went like this "quality of products is going down. The venting issue (and many others like "you can't install our product over boards") is used by manufacturers to get out of warranty claims"
I am in the home inspection business and have seen 3 roofs recently in my area fail prematurely (1 on a $500,000+ house). All of these roofs should be lasting longer since they were light coloured with one being "frost white/light grey". It is well accepted that lighter coloured roofs last longer since they reflect the suns rays and do not get as hot as dark roofs with or without venting.
15-25 years ago, roofing was one of the services my small construction company offered. There was a national brand (in Canada) that offered a 10 warranty but whose dark shingles would last 18-20 years and their frost white/light grey would last 24-28 years.
I recently approached a newer house for inspection with this colour of shingles in very poor condition. Speaking to the agent, I said this place must be 24-25 years old; she said "No, it's barely 16 years old!!!" So again, even some of the lighter coloured shingles aren't lasting!!!
I don't think the heat from the compressor would be significant enough to cause any problems. Heck, it doesn't run all the time anyway.
There's no moisture coming up from the compressor - That's all inside at the evaporator coil.
So basically I think you're O.K.
99% of them kiss their houses goodbye when leaving the wife.