Kevin,
I am new to South Florida and I am going to be building a house there sooner or later. Where did you learn of a sealed attic? I have never heard of this in the past in the mid atlantic area. I know things are done much differently down there but I have seen plenty of homes with ridge vents. Is the attic conditioned in your scenario? Do you have any reading information I could peruse?
Thanks!
Neil
Hi, Neil.
Welcome to Florida. I moved from Long Island to Gulf Cove last year and we finished our home in December. Smarty gave you some good sites, plus I read everything at
www.icynene.com. I also spoke with an engineer at Icynene, though I don't remember his name since I did the research over two years ago.
You will see the majority of homes in FL with ridge vents and other attic venting. Most of the people in the building industry came from or learned the business from someone in the north, where you need to vent the attics. In the hot, humid weather of South Florida, letting all that humid air into the attic isn't the best thing to do. One of the concerns my builder had with sealing the attic was getting it passed by the building dept. Codes at the time required attic venting. By the time we got to the insulation inspection, the building dept understood the value of unvented attics and we didn't have any problem passing.
This past weekend it was very sunny and the temps were in the high 80's. I went into the attic expecting the usual blast of hot air, and it wasn't there. I could barely tell a temperature difference between in and out of the attic. The primary reason we chose Icynene wasn't for the energy savings or comfort levels. Hurricanes are the main weather threat here, and the weakest point on a home is the soffits. As winds increase, the aluminum or vinyl soffits fail, allowing wind and rain into the attic. The increased pressure in the attic exerts upward pressure on the roof and downward pressure on the ceilings below. Eventually one of them fails, leading to extensive damage. We didn't want the chance of that happening, so we sealed the attic. Our soffits are solid stucco like the exterior walls. Plus our soffits only overhang 15", giving less area for the wind to catch.
Good luck with your home building. It's a very exhausting and frustrating experience, but in the end, I feel it's worth it. The house came out as I envisioned when I started designing it in 2004.
Kevin
