Does Your Attic Have a Fever? Why A Hot Attic Can Cost You Thousands

Your attic might just be sick this time of year.
If your cooling bills are high you might want to make a visit up that wobbly attic access ladder and have a look around.
Sadly today's homebuilders do not build homes with well ventilated attics. They care more about a clean roof line and are not going to spend extra money on attic vents and rooftop ventilators that most homeowners will never see or care about.
Because of this fact, millions, if not billions of dollars are wasted each year cooling homes that have hot attics, all for the lack of a few cheap vents.
There are motorized vents that you can buy and hook up to the power supply and force hot air from your attic when their thermostat gets to a certain number. These are worthwhile products and are a quick fix to a hot attic problem although a better solution is to have a number of passive vents on the rooftop combined with a vented soffit to allow air flow up and out the top. You can help this natural airflow along with a rooftop solar powered attic ventilator. These sell for around $200 and use no electricity but move up to 700 cubic feet of hot air per minute out of your attic.
While you check out the temperature in your attic on a hot day, be sure and have a look at the insulation you have up there. You might need more. There are federal rebates for insulation and often local rebates as well as long as the work is done by an approved contractor.
You can add insulation yourself easily though using the blow in cellulose type and a rented machine. You can insulate a 2000 square foot home's attic in about half a day if you use blow in cellulose insulation and have a helper to feed the bales of insulation into the hopper of the machine downstairs while you spray the insulation from a hose in the attic.
Remember that adequate insulation and ventilation work hand in hand and both matter at all times of the year. Ventilation helps in the winter by keeping your attic moisture free. Moist insulation does not work as well as it does dry.
Your payback for ventilating and insulating can come in as little as one season.
Together with other energy saving measures such as solar screens on your windows you can see a much lower electricity bill.