When vinyl siding was put on my home 8 to 10 years ago they covered most of my eave vents and the air flow for the perforated vinyl panels for the eaves has 1/8 the air flow of the previous metal ones. Thus my house has less than 50 square inches of intake and it should have around 700+.
How would I know if my home, attic, wood shingles, and anything else will have a shorter life from this? What would I see?
Please send the answer to Improvelife@aol.com
Get a home Inspection now … I do not send too AOL…
You can check for staining / condensation around nail heads, excessive heat in summer or , frost on sheathing in winter.
Unfortunately this happened to me. It appears to be common because I have been told lots of siding companies do not understand eave venting and they do not try to learn about it. My eave vents were covered for over 9 years. I do have good roof vents. My home was over 95% under vented from the eave vents being covered for over 9 years. It can void your shingle warranty, raise your cooling costs, you can get hot air coming down your exhaust fans in the kitchen and bathrooms, prematurely age your shingles, decking, and other attic components, prematurely age your air conditioner, cause moisture and mold problems, cause ice dams that can stain ceilings, and more. You could try to get the siding company to fix it, submit the damages to the siding companies insurance, and more. My wood shingles were premium Grade 1 shingles that were supposed to last 40 to 50 years. Unfortunately my wood shingles are only 12 years old and I have been told they are very brittle from my eave vents being covered. Thus I have been told my wood shingles need to be replaced by my insurance adjuster. I question if all the prematurely aged parts of your home will show up with a home inspection though. Who can visually say your wood shingles have prematurely aged 6 years from your eave vents being covered without sending a sample to a laboratory. Depending on how long your eave vents have been covered, my guess is a home inspector might think things look okay but then you could find out years later that your shingles and more need to be replaced early. However if you get hail or wind damage to your wood shingles and you have replacement insurance your insurance might pay to have them replaced. That is what happened to me and now I am looking at the Decra XD metal shingle.