A general housing/roofing question

[BSAKing]

In past, I was plagued with ice damming on my roof and upon inspecting the roof this year, discovered it was shot.

So - this year I tore out the old wooden soffiting and put in the styrofoam sheets to hold back the insulation and replaced the whole length with vented aluminum soffiting. Originally there was only 4

12"x6" vents along a 40' span, and they were glogged with paint and covreed with insulation from inside th attic. I also replaced the roof vents (which were the old convection turbine things) with Maxx vents.

At the same time I added an additional bathroom roof vent and upgraded all the fans, ducting with insulated ducting and new bathroom roof vents to eliminate any condensation in the attic.

Then I reshingled my roof after removing the old shingles.

Question:

Now - I we have started to get really cold weather (at last) up here in Canada, and I swear my whole house feels warmer! Especially the upstairs. I cannot see this being a function of shingles alone.

I would have thought that filling the attic with cold air due to improved venting should have made it feel colder upstairs - obviously not! It is too soon to see whether there is any impact on my heating bills - either up or down. It was too late in the season to assess the impact when I would need to have the air conditioning running.

Why is this? Does anyone have an explanation/theory?

[Sev]

2 wild guesses off the top of my head: 1- your insulation is drier instead of damp and consequently more effective. 2- inproved airflow up through house, so warm air is rising from lower level. Unfortunately, 2 will not lower your heating bill, except insofar as better comfort level lets you set back T-stat. But I'm not very happy with my answers- maybe somebody can do better, or perhaps you're just imagining it. Maybe _your _circulation is better due to all that work lol

[BSAKing]

Well - my first reaction was that:

1) I was warmer from basking in the glory of my accomplishments! OR 2) I was just imagining it. .

I had also thought of the warm air rising as a possibility as well. Like I said - it is too early to assess any impact on my heating bill

I had also thought of humidity, but the other way - if I had more humidity in the rooms upstairs, that would raise the relative humidity and it should feel warmer before, not afterwards.

Today it is -20 or so (C) and it all still feels more comfortable to me.....

Oh well - yet another > [e-mail] wrote:

[BSAKing]

Well - my first reaction was that:

1) I was warmer from basking in the glory of my accomplishments! OR 2) I was just imagining it. .

I had also thought of the warm air rising as a possibility as well. Like I said - it is too early to assess any impact on my heating bill

I had also thought of humidity, but the other way - if I had more humidity in the rooms upstairs, that would raise the relative humidity and it should feel warmer before, not afterwards.

Today it is -20 or so (C) and it all still feels more comfortable to me.....

Oh well - yet another > [e-mail] wrote:

[Norminn]

Replaced heating ducts or just the ducts for the vents?

My theory: your attic wasn't ventillated, so it pulled warm air from the house. That is why snow melted and refroze. It is now properly ventillated, so it can no longer pull the warm air. With better ventillation of the attic, it will be more static. The air in the attic remains cold, so it doesn't move as much.

Reverse is true in summer - hot air at the top of the attic space moves out through vents, pulls in cooler outside air through soffits.

[BSAKing]

hmmm - that is a possibility.

When I speak of replacing ducting, it was only replacing the old non-insulated ductiung from the bathroom fans to the new bathroom roof vents with newer insulated ducting.

Previously I had end gable venting, plus the turbine roof vents and the (almost) non-functioning soffit vents. I guess the only air that would ever really be moving would be in the top part of the attic. The way it is now, it would be drawing from the soffiting all the way across the attic to the maxivents and removing humidity.

Norm>