Framing basics for attic knee walls along the sides of your loft or attic space.
Knee wall attic ventilation.
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.
Attic ventilation works on the principle that heated air naturally rises primarily utilizing two types of vents.
Bob you are correct i only install a fan if there is an opposing gable vent to pull intake air from.
Support and follow me.
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.
In the photo at left the kneewall is the short wall with the door in it.
Without a little help 2 gable vents on each side of a knee wall attic won t move much air.
Physically a knee wall is an area of a home that would normally be a full attic space.
The higher the knee wall the greater the amount of useful wall space you create in your finished attic.
Intake vents located at the lowest part of the roof under the eaves allow cool.
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.
A knee wall is also an area that do it yourselfers normally fix wrongly.
But you do so at the expense of floor 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.
Instead of a full attic a room is built in that space.
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.