Wood Attic Vents

Wood attic vents are a thing of the past, you will rarely find them on a new home or building. They were on homes or buildings that were built before the 1960s and if they are used today, it would usually be specified on the building plans, by the architect. It would be more cosmetic than practical.

Metal attic vents are the most popular and can be purchased at almost any home improvement center and lumber yard. They come in different sizes and shapes. You can get square, round, half round, hexagon, octagon and almost every conceivable shape that you could possibly think of.

I'm not going to tell you that wood attic vents are better than the metal ones or vice versa. We all know that wood rots and metal rusts and depending upon your weather conditions, one might actually outlast the other.

It would probably be about the same amount of work, to repair a wood attic vent or replace an existing one with a prefabricated metal vent.

Home Repair Tip: If you have to wood attic vent, make sure that you check the inside areas in the attic, around the attic vents, for any water damage. The wood attic vents seem to leak more than the metal ones and there is a good chance that you will find water damage on the interior of the attic framing.

Another big problem with wood vents, will be their protective screening. Usually the protective screening will be torn or missing and should be repaired and replaced, to prevent large insects or rodents from entering your attic. Some of the old wood vents used cloth screening and should be replaced with metal.

I recommend using 1/4" by 1/4" wire mesh screening, for any vents.