Diagnostic and Troubleshooter Technician
houses should be viewed in a holistic manner, much as people practice holistic medicine. The different components of the home do NOT act in separation, but in an unified manner, often making it that much more difficult to track potential problems.
Recently we were helping a friend that was completely puzzled by the moisture issues he was experiencing. The home was built about 22 years ago, in Diamond Cove, with an attached sunroom being added 2 years ago. A very nice, all season sunroom complete with fireplace. He was experiencing condensation forming on undersides of his insulated sunroom ceiling.
He called the sunroom installers numerous times. They couldn't find how or why this was occurring. He then consulted with a roofer, who wanted to replace the entire roof structure. The roof installed was made from 6 inch insulated panels, covered with a veneer finish. The veneer finish was applied also to the underside of the soffits, for visual appeal. A product that the sunroom company uses ALL the time, and from a quick visual inspection, more than adequate. We did NOT think that the sunroom roof was the culprit.
A look at the construction shows the potential problem. The image below is a QUICK drawing of the house in black, the sunroom in red, and the roof in blue.
We traced the problem to ventilation. The sunroom company had affixed the sunroom to the 2x6 facia. The attic is NOT insulated over the soffits (we use insulation stops to actually PREVENT blown in insulation from blocking the ventilated soffits).
In the diagram below, the pink is the insulation, the green the veneer finish.
Warm moist air would rise, chill as it hits the cold attic, moisture would condense out, and run down dripping out of the veneer.
After we found the problem, the fix was simple. Insulate the eave in that area. (It should be mentioned that you DO need adequate roof ventilation; if this was over a signifigant area, we would have had to discuss adding ventilation).
Cost to fix? A few hundred dollars and few hours of time.
The value of seeing the home in a holistic manner and knowing how the different elements interact with the others. Reminds me of the MasterCard commercial, except we'd need to change the slogan to:
"Cost of our help: $0,
letting him sleep at night: priceless"
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