Who do you call, for through-roof ventilation exhaust ducting?

Who do you call, for through-roof ventilation exhaust ducting ?

A Google AI Overview answer is:

For through-roof ventilation exhaust ducting, you should call a licensed roofing contractor. They have the expertise and experience to properly install ventilation systems on your roof, including assessing your needs, choosing the right type of vent, and ensuring it's installed correctly to prevent leaks.

If that were true, roofers would be constantly willing to work in attics to create the majority of that ducting and the installation of the fan appliances served. Roofers do not have this interest or capability.

Consider my need of a kitchen exhaust fan in the major remodel of the kitchen of the home I own.

I chose a Panasonic in-line fan, pivoting from flooring over thorough R49 insulation with only a small-bend 6" warm air elbow to complete the path through-roof. Here I drilled a pilot hole through-roof at the center of a tracing of the placed elbow. Duct completion is in several traverses between roof and attic, enabled by a strong attic ladder, and by good lighting and flooring in the attic

Cut through shingles with a wood block propelling sharp deck screws, preserving a hole saw. Drill a hole starter and complete the cut with a sawzall. Pry shingles and pull nails as needed. Collect wood debris in the attic upon a sheet.

12/5/2018

Here is the fan, ready-to-use.

My vast attic flooring is useful. It adds to insulation value and serves as the top element of extremely strong box beams of the 12" thickness floor over the remodeled kitchen.

The insulation is protected forever.

I had to anticipate all of this in placing the register and duct from the kitchen ceiling over the electric (not gas!) stove.

At much of a four-foot periphery the insulation is protected just by being off-path. See top-layer R30 Rockwool insulation except R30 fiberglass at the extreme periphery, accommodating plywood attic ventilation inlet baffles.

9/27/2018

See the kitchen fan register in-line with an operable window, over the kitchen stove. Upon a steamy or stinky cooking adventure, lift the window a bit or a lot, and turn on the fan. The view is from the archway entering the kitchen from the living room. The fan switch is the right-most of a 4-gang switch group. The lighting constellation chosen here is Passing Through,  4-Way switched at each of the three entries.

In this, my now-modern and clever 1955 home, I could not imagine calling a Licensed Roofer, for greater competence at the through-roof ducting of the kitchen fan. Roofers by my experience see an attic as merely a trash heap. They will not go there. Roofers will benefit in a new regime where other Trades, or a general contractor, will just stay out of their way. And, that is what I have practiced here.

This illustrates a customer installation of kitchen exhaust ducting similar to my own. See that the ideal location of the penetration adapter is in hinging at the high end upon the roofing membrane. That is one shingle-layer deeper than a common roof cap. The better roof cap is minimally tucked under shingles. The screwed-down roof cap safely anchors disturbed surrounding shingles against driving wind and rain.

As a inventive Weatherization Contractor and General Contractor, I almost always confront really-awful ducting of bath and kitchen exhaust fans surely not the work of roofers. I am not taught to call a roofer, but to do what I can, myself. With bath fan ducts, the best and awful practice of weatherization contractors is to just plug the plastic or flexible-aluminum found duct, to a 4" take-off stabbed into a plate that covers a found roof high vent. I know better. That installation then lacks a backflow check and diminishes the needed attic ventilation. The duct probably obstructive of discharge from a crummy fan that is only a noise-maker, continues to do harm.

Here is a photo album sampling my jobs employing penetration adapters, in chronological order, showing evolution of methods.

Search  Label: Roof Penetration Adapter , at this blog, and find posts including these:

Roof Caps For Bath and Kitchen Exhaust Ducts  (January 15, 2017)

Note then this post describing the shingle-over of my roof in Spring 2023, being the roofer confronting this roof cap. I could venture into the attic, but there is no need:

 Roof Penetration Adapters and a Composition Shingle Overlay  (April  3, 2024)

Turn out four gasketed deck screws to reveal the roof closure with a 6" penetration adapter and its' transferred flapper, riveted to the adapter rim.

With little nibbling of new shingles, the rain barrier  hinges down, perfectly aligned with and coupled to the duct and fan below.

There was the same accurate simplicity at three 4" plastic Air Vent caps without stems.

Learn an important lesson. Lay down all covering shingle rows before screwing down the roof cap. The shingles will be more-strongly retained including fullest engagement of tar strips. Let the cap not be tucked under shingles anywhere if that is how it works out. Remember, the cap is only a rain cover. There is never a need to cut shingles as more than the circular hole. Shingle material lapping over the top of the roof cap has no purpose. It is not more pretty.

What, really, is needed in a roof cap?

code requirements for ducting a bath fan through a roof

Google AI Overview: 

when ducting a bathroom fan through a roof, the primary requirement is to exhaust the air directly outdoors, not into the attic or any other interior space, meaning the duct must be routed to the exterior of the building and terminate on the roof.

There is reference to International Residential Code (IRC) Chapter 15, Exhaust Systems.

code requirements for ducting a kitchen fan through a roof

Google AI Overview:

According to most building codes, when ducting a kitchen fan through a roof, the exhaust duct must terminate at least 12 inches above the roof surface, with some regions requiring even greater heights to prevent snow buildup, and the ductwork should be positioned at least 18 inches away from the roof surface where it attaches to the fan; the fan discharge itself should be at least 40 inches away from the roof surface.

This is surprising in the matter of elevation at discharge!   And, never met in my discoveries. Who offers such a discharge path above the roof? It seems to be concerned about flame in a grease fire, or discharge burial under snow.

I find nothing offered, in this Google search: image: 12" tall kitchen exhaust roof cap

Smarter now, I could replace the squat Famco cap with this: 

Goose Neck Exhaust Roof Vent – Painted Famco, $99.95. 

The lesser flow resistance makes sense. Nibble out the stem and flapper, or convince Famco to offer separate cap without stem, and flappered penetration adapter.

Want the elevated discharge for a bath fan too, to tolerate snow.

Let even a not-ducted attic ventilation high vent be only a rain cover. Where placement is set with a penetration adapter, avoid misalignment of the sheathing cut and the cap.

Now move on to report an incident that inspires this post:

Violence against bath fan ducts in my row home residence, July 17, 2024!

In this job photo album, I share the awful and typical conditions of fans and ducting that I found and fixed in a now-pretty and useful attic.

On July 17, 2024, the two bath fan roof caps were ripped off, leaving broken ducts to dump moist air into the attic, blackening the roof sheathing.

We were not consulted We were not informed.

New steel caps with manually-crimped stems were left to again defy roofers, at the next roofing replacement, if we were smart enough to reattach the ducts..

10/30/2024

The steel ducts with new elbows are now screwed and taped to the foolish roof cap stems. At next reroof, workers might curse the now-captured roof caps, again breaking the ducts in refusal to enter the attic.

See that this space directly off the  wonderful attic ladder is the convenient repository of long ducts and other sheet metal I keep in reserve for my unique A-rated business of Attic Access.

With this post and that album, please understand that a roofing company is not the superior owner of well-performing bath fan ducts, entitled to demolish them for no apparent reason and without notice. The roofing repair company of this incident is identified as  NW Roofing. We must learn whether NW Roofing routinely breaks ducts bonded to roof caps, without thought of repair. In most cases, attics are hostile of access, and in many there are no safe walkways to points where it is known that service will be needed at intervals not longer than 25 years. See my proposal that attic access walkways shall be mandatory to expected service points.

This blog, Sunday, October 30, 2016

Mandatory Attic Access Walkways

At my own expense I defended ten thoughtful proposed revisions to 2016 International Energy Conservation Code. All ten were unanimously disapproved in a codes process rigged by National Association of Home Builders. In a bad regime of service access, it is very important that roofers shall not be required to enter attics. Roofers must come to understand the impossibility of their responsibility for and superiority over ducts. With roof penetration adapters and their permanent attachment to ducts, roofers may do only what they do best.

As a unique and valuable weatherization contractor/ engineer/ inventor, age 80, I have given much exemplary service to existing homes for twenty years, in metro Portland, Oregon. Here is the job album of one good example in SW Portland, with mending of awful bath fans and a kitchen microwave exhaust without ducting even to the attic. Safe, lighted access and removal of interfering and not-needed beams were  imperative. Awful, dangerous conditions in a home often need considerable investment to do right.

Job Album C-L Attic Access, November-December 2016.

 

I know of no one else on Earth doing the important work I inspire. I need allies including most-competent roofing companies. Specifically at January 2025, I need the support of Pacific West Roofing, the installer of the current roofing of the townhouse complex where I live, and where my penetration adapters known to them, were misunderstood and violently discarded. I ask that Pacific West Roofing shall support my timely product improvement requests to roof cap manufacturers Famco and BetterVenting. Where BetterVenting begins with a focus on the small market of through-attic clothes dryer ducts, they shall know that dryer caps must be cleaned often, off-roof. BetterVenting (Inovate) offers an adapter similar to mine, called RoofNeck. They don't seem to value the device as a water barrier or as an asset to cap cleaning. Dryer ducts must be thoroughly cleaned very often, more easily in soaking, off-roof.

BetterVenting RoofNeck with smallest-possible sheathing cut:

Install above or below the roof deck. 

The plate is too small to mend sheathing hacks or misalignment with shingle patterns. The neck at 4 1/8" ID does not securely engage with warm-air steel ducting 4" OD.

The downward neck invites capture in the attic, which is OK only if  this is a permanent part of the roof. Atttachment holes should then be only at the top edge, allowing hinging tuck of membrane and shingles in a reroof..

BetterVenting imagines a dryer cap thoroughly bound by surrounding shingles. If there is a RoofNeck here, it is not being employed to best advantage.

I have learned that the best use of a cap primarily a rain cover, is to anchor the surrounding shingles, with just four gasketed deck screws. Don't be breaking tar strips and pulling nails to clean a cap/.screen/ backflow flapper.

At 2/12/2025, Google this:

penetration adapter for ducted vents of a house roof   

Find some foolishness in caps with stem jabbing through-roof, and this:

Roof Cap Vent Adapter · Metal Ducting · Galvanized · 6" (RVA6) 

By PrimeSource Building Products

Dunn Lumber Store SKU

559176

Price at 8/22/2025: $16.40 plus shipping.

(Not an economical availability.)

Any local good sheetmetal shop can improve upon the Dunn cost and availability. Specify  stem ID that of standard HVAC round pipe. Custom-form the stem as a  weldment of strip 3" wide. Roll-form the stem centered in the hole-cut plate. Let the plate be round or square at say 3x stem diameter, or maybe stem diameter plus 8". Any economical producer would set a plate shape standard. A plate-centered 3" stem would pilot both the round minimum sheathing cut, and divert water flow under the roof cap.

Better but without the piloting in roof sheathing, form penetration adapters by stamping aluminum plate to form a 1 1/2" upward stem. Let there be competition for least-cost distribution of a penetration adapter for every roof cap. Let the penetration adapter have a hinged flapper for backflow prevention even at high statc vents, to combat embers in wildfires. Just get on with smartness and an uncoupling of roofers from needs of attic entry.

Roof Penetration Adapters and a Composition Shingle Overlay

In April of 2023 I had the opportunity to observe benefit of Roof Penetration Adapters of through-roof bath and kitchen fan ducts at roof caps, in a DIY overlay re-roof of my own home, now an exemplary rental. There are no leaks anywhere in the thirty year old expired shingling I applied as a tear-off at house age fifty years, replacing much rotted 1x8 shiplap with a reserve of lumber found in the attic. The durable underlayment is 20 pound felt nowhere brittle, overlaying the penetration adapter of the four remodel fan ducts that I had installed over a span of twenty years; this the most recent. I trust the penetration adapter, now buried one layer deeper, to protect against leakage at any layer, for the life of my new reroof.

Here is a photo album of the shingle overlay process, done by myself alone after on-roof delivery. 

A white roof will measurably reduce summertime heat burdens,*   and reduce heating-season radiation loss of energy to night skies. This is Owens Corning Shasta White, not much in demand and in limited supply.

* Google and Yale Environmental 360 affirm this.

I don't worry about moss or other discoloration because my neighbor to the South taught me that roof life is extended by yearly application of a 50-50 mix of tri-sodium phosphate and  20 mule team borax. I have added a six year confirmation in this to that of 25 years for my neighbor. I didn't like using commonly and wrongly-applied copper sulfate.

Here I experience the ease of overlay shingling past the first of three 4" fan ducts. 

Press the next shingle to the 1" tall throat of the penetration adapter and stab with an awl to break away a divot. A tin snip doesn't work nearly as well. 

With a nod to ordinary, expected appearance, I will fit the next shingle row by cutting a 6 1/4" width slot about the square raised base of the roof cap. Do the same for all three 4" fan caps.

This is not a simple house. That first fan cap reset is over an added half-bath in the kitchen. The third of the three 4" caps is for passive radon venting. The house has 1 1/2 baths.

See the half-bath construction as a pair of walls with a pocket door,  joined to new kitchen cabinets and anchored to the unitary rectangular tile floor.

Here, I confronted the steel roof cap of the 6" steel duct from the kitchen exhaust fan, Panasonic in-line. The roof cap is Famco PBK 6 BK, modified with maximum circular enlargement of the back opening, salvaging the backdraft damper of the 6" pipe stem. See my as-always surprising treatment of the roof cap as merely a rain cover. There is no need to deeply tuck the cap under shingles. Not knowing the full story, a roofer will see this as error. That thing is going to leak! 

Reveal the roof closure with a 6" penetration adapter and its' transferred flapper..

Stab out a circular divot around the adapter throat.

And fit a full circle cutout.

With little nibbling of top-layer shingles, the rain barrier  hinges down, perfectly aligned with and coupled to the duct and fan below.

As with the 4" fan ducts, produce an expected tuck with the cap captured only by the two screws at bottom. This is not full surrender to expected appearance. For fan retrofit to a good roof, always employing a penetration adapter, I will continue to defend that the cap is only a rain cover, perhaps not tucked at all.

Now, regret all surrender to expected appearance. Shingle edges covering the cap are not well-protected against lift and tear-off with high winds. Did I tar them here? Did I apply screws at the cap upper-edge, now captured?

See a fixed relationship of the kitchen Panasonic in-line fan, and its' roof penetration adapter, fan strapped-up and pinioned from plywood flooring over the R49 attic insulation.

Here a 6" steel warm-air elbow penetrates the roof sheathing and engages the throat of the penetration adapter. The roof cap without a stem is easily detachable without attic access. A cap with a stem, screwed and taped to the fan piping as required, would command attic entry. 

Here is a cross section of the kitchen 6" duct first-course shingling:

With this cross-section view, recall concern that the caps' discharge screen area is not generous. The air path is needlessly resistive. Whai if I am unhappy with fan performance and want to try a better cap?

Famco offers a better, Goose Neck cap:

With either, I am at present burdened to nibble out the stem and flapper. With either, I might want to lift the modified cap from the roof to clean or fix the screen. Note the ease of swapping Famco caps. Note that an uncertain seal between the body and the plate is no longer of concern.

The new roof overlay is especially white in this Google Summer mid-day satellite photo

My renters found no need of air conditioning in Summer 2024. Their resort is to one master bedroom window unit that interferes with usually-wanted natural ventilation.

More Interesting or Egregious Attic Photos

What is the high end of what we can achieve with Norwesco RV038 roof high vents? For this conversation, start out seeing a real limit. Wasps ruined the small space between screen and hood, of this one.

I wonder what this means, to this possibility . We are reminded that RV038 may be fully disassembled from above, a plus. I am obliged to go back to my customer, to offer cleaning of his vent.

That customer did not wish for repair of this bath fan roof cap. A flex duct end had been positioned below the roof paper, and the fan never developed enough force to lift the cap flapper. Children grown. Fan not needed.

Look at this concentration of soffit vents at the base of a cathedral ceiling over the home grand staircase.

Here is one of the roof joist bays of that cathedral ceiling, open to the attic. Outside air entering the soffit openings is as likely to flow under the silly ill-fitting R19 batt, as over it. The ceiling is not insulated.

Here I have taken down a T12 two-dead-bulb fluorescent fixture in a walk-in closet.

Remember: tubes were black.

To wire the fluorescent fixture, detachable sides in two can lights were - - detached. Where the fixture roof sagged from two screws, this left large openings from the closet to the attic, with conditioned air well-enjoyed by spiders.




















Where I replaced the cans and fixture with RACO 175 junction boxes and wonderful Nicor DLS10 LED disk lights, I could insert a very-wonderful Fakro LTK 22/47 ladder between. Note RACO 175 junction boxes ringed by drywall cut from the ladder opening, sealed in and texture-matched with my flexible grout .

LED disk lights are so much brighter, such pretty jewels, that will serve on forever. Brightest-possible light is wished in a closet.

A home inspector barely managed to arrest a bad fall, hanging onto the truss elements at RHS, making for that distant furnace pad. There were things to be fixed, identified in the inspector's photo report. Strange trusses missed connectors that might resist collapse roll-over if flimsy OSB sheathing, weakened at large high-vent cutouts, should buckle in a high-wind event. One could not safely get to the attic furnace. The inefficient home with crummy HVAC ducts in attic and crawl space effectively not insulated, needed two furnaces.

I made it to the furnace pad OK, not trusting the springy OSB for hanging-on, in a foot thrust to the revealed 2x4 bottom truss element. I swung along that RHS truss line. I expected to find no insulation under the 30 sq ft furnace pad. Instead I found this. Pad framing is perpendicular to trusses, and batts within that framing rest atop truss bottom elements, out of contact with drywall and of no value. How shameful! Who would not understand this?

I got home safely, 63 miles round-trip and most of a day invested. I offered clever blocking of truss roll-over, and a 200 sq ft strong plywood-decked pad, insulated R49, bridging the access hole and a jacked-up furnace, for modest $1250.  I never heard from the mean realtor representing the seller and wanting cheapest repairs.