Attic Ventilation

1 of 1 people found this post helpful

Post Reply | Watch this Post

Moderator Post (s) for this thread: > Jumping to Confusions by homebild on 06/28/2009

I'll be happy to give as much info as possible to enable somebody to help me with this problem.

Location: In a residential area in a medium-sized town, nowhere near any industrial areas or open fields. Nothing in the use of the area has changed in decades.

The house is 2-story approx. 3600 sq ft. The front half was built ca 1850-1860 and moved to present location in 1890. From 1890 to 1905, there were several additions. The house was originally heated with coal stoves, later augmented by a very small coal furnace. In 1923 a Holland coal furnace large enough to heat the entire house was installed.

In 1945, the Holland furnace was converted to oil. In 1962, it was converted to gas.

In 1999, I had the Holland furnace replaced with a high-efficiency furnace. It is well-maintained, inspected, cleaned, and adjusted annually. Pleated furnace filters are replaced monthly. The used filters are somewhat darker than they were before the soffit vents were installed, but not overly so, nor do they seem to need replacing more often than before the installation of the soffit vents.

Until 2000, there was virtually no attic ventilation. There were two gable windows, but the had been nailed shut for decades.

In 2000 Cobra ridge vents were installed when the house was re-roofed. I was told that those alone wouldn't provide enough ventilation for the attic, and I would need soffit vents to create air flow through the attic and out the ridge vents. So in 2004 I had soffit vents installed.

Before the soffit vents were installed, we had an average amount of "normal" dust, light in color. The heavy black dust problem started the very week the soffit vents were installed in 2004, which is why I feel relatively safe in assuming that the vents have something to do with the problem.

I'll be glad answer any questions and give as much information as I can in order to solve this problem. My main concern is the danger of breathing air that is so dirty. But it would be nice to get back to nice gray dust instead of this black stuff, too!