Is Your Roof At Risk Of Condensation Damage? What You Should Know

Posted on: 15 July 2019

When it comes to roofing problems that cold weather can trigger, condensation on your roof is one of the more concerning ones. Just like when you see condensation on glasses in the summer, condensation can form under your home's roof in the winter months. Understanding what causes condensation on your roof, why it could be a problem, and how you can prevent it are all important things to help you protect your home. Here's what you need to know about roof condensation and how to keep your roof free of it.

What Can Cause Condensation To Form Under Your Roof In The Winter

Your home's roof is constantly exposed to the elements and is frequently covered in ice and snow through the winter season. That means that the roof itself stays fairly cold during the winter. Since you have to run the heat indoors to combat that cold, the warm air you create inside can come into contact with the roof's cold surface. When that happens, condensation is formed because of the difference in the temperatures.

Why You Should Be Concerned About Condensation Under Your Home's Roof

While you might think that condensation under the roof isn't really anything to worry about, it can actually be a serious problem. The underside of your roof, in most cases, is in your attic. When warm air reaches your attic and causes condensation on the roof, the heat can also pass through the roof and lead to melting and runoff of the ice and snow that's on the roof.

Over time, this can lead to a variety of problems, including moisture damage in your attic, mold and mildew growth, ice dams, and more. Left unaddressed, this can lead to underlayment issues, problems with the roof decking, and even structural damage to the walls and the interior of your home.

How You Can Prevent Condensation Under Your Home's Roof

The good news is that there are many things that you can do to help reduce the risk of condensation forming under your home's roof this winter. Preventing condensation starts with keeping the warm air away from the cold roof. To do this, you first need to be sure that the lower floors are adequately ventilated so that the warm air has somewhere to go other than straight up into your attic.

Include ventilation in your bathrooms, kitchen, and other such areas where moist, warm air tend to be generated. You may want to install some extraction fans to help facilitate this. That way, you minimize the amount of warm air that makes it up to your attic at all.

Further, adding ventilation in your attic, just below the roof, can also provide an outlet for much of the warm air that does reach the attic itself. This helps to keep the air away from the roof. However, you cannot keep all of the warm air from reaching the roof space. 

To ensure that any warm air that does reach the roof cannot cause condensation issues, you need to be sure that your roof is adequately insulated — the more insulation, the better. Talk with a residential roofing services company about adding more insulation beneath your roof as well as in your attic. Your roofing contractors can show you the best way to add insulation to your existing roof or may recommend upgrading the roof you already have to use a better-insulating roofing material instead.

The more you understand about the threat of condensation underneath your home's roof, the easier it is to see why this is such a serious threat. Talk with a roofing contractor near you today for more help.

Share

Explaining Your Vision to Your Contractor

A few years ago, my wife and I decided that it would be fun to remodel our kitchen. After checking out a myriad of websites and carefully developing a plan of attack, we hired a contractor and started looking at counter samples. Unfortunately, we weren't able to adequately show our vision to our contractor, and we didn't end up with the kitchen that we wanted. I want to help other homeowners to know what they need to say and do in order to get what they want out of the construction process. Read through these articles to find out more.

Latest Posts