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Knee wall attic ventilation.
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.
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.
Kneewalls are commonly found in attics especially in attics that have been converted to living space but they can be difficult to insulate properly.
Without a little help 2 gable vents on each side of a knee wall attic won t move much air.
Attic ventilation works on the principle that heated air naturally rises primarily utilizing two types of vents.
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.
Yesterday i was doing a home energy rating for quality assurance in augusta georgia and the house i was in had a bonus room.
A knee wall is also an area that do it yourselfers normally fix wrongly.
A knee wall is an area you ve seen hundreds of times and may have no idea what it is till now.
The point is to provide air movement when soffit vents and venting the sloped section are not an option.
In this energy smart details article senior editor martin holladay describes two ways to insulate attic kneewalls.
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.
Bob you are correct i only install a fan if there is an opposing gable vent to pull intake air from.
But you do so at the expense of floor space.
The higher the knee wall the greater the amount of useful wall space you create in your finished attic.
Instead of a full attic a room is built in that space.
Framing basics for attic knee walls along the sides of your loft or attic space.