Knee Wall Attic Ventilation

Furthermore attic knee walls really need to thermally perform better than an exterior wall especially in the summer months when the temperature difference between the unconditioned attic space and the conditioned space is likely to be much greater than to the temperatures that exterior walls are exposed to.

Knee wall attic ventilation.

If you are insulating the attic flat just remember you will also need baffles to ensure airflow from the soffit up to the ridge vent but that s a whole different article. A knee wall is an area you ve seen hundreds of times and may have no idea what it is till now. A knee wall is also an area that do it yourselfers normally fix wrongly. The higher the knee wall the greater the amount of useful wall space you create in your finished attic.

Bonus rooms are often the least comfortable room in a house and the main reason is that they are the most flawed part of the building envelope especially the attic kneewalls. Instead of a full attic a room is built in that space. Attic ventilation works on the principle that heated air naturally rises primarily utilizing two types of vents. A knee wall is a short vertical wall roughly two or three feet high that blocks in that useless triangular space.

Intake vents located at the lowest part of the roof under the eaves allow cool. In the photo at left the kneewall is the short wall with the door in it. But you do so at the expense of floor space. The point is to provide air movement when soffit vents and venting the sloped section are not an option.

Yesterday i was doing a home energy rating for quality assurance in augusta georgia and the house i was in had a bonus room. Support and follow me. If you are insulating your attic flat then you would insulate the knee wall cutting off that cubby space from the rest of the conditioned space. In this energy smart details article senior editor martin holladay describes two ways to insulate attic kneewalls.

Physically a knee wall is an area of a home that would normally be a full attic space. Framing basics for attic knee walls along the sides of your loft or attic space.