Cor-A-Vent News & Views http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/ en-us Thu, 13 Jun 2013 19:51:34 GMT Customer Spotlight: Weaver Barns http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=30 The first Cor-A-Vent customer spotlight focuses on high-end shed and barn manufacturer Weaver Barns, located in Sugarcreek, Ohio. As you can see from the example below, Weaver makes beautiful structures that will stand the test of time thanks to quality craftsmanship and only the best building materials.

Cor-A-Vent is glad to be partnered with Weaver, providing them ridge and soffit ventilation, an extremely important component in ongoing roof maintenance and longevity. As they say at Weaver Barns, it's why their roofs are "cool."

Like Cor-A-Vent, Weaver Barns is a family-owned company started in, as you might expect, a barn. They've since expanded into a 25,000 sq. ft. facility. They sell their beautiful structures through a network of dealers in Ohio and surrounding states. 

 

 

]]> Thu, 13 Jun 2013 19:48:32 GMT http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=30 ridge vent Construction in Flood Zones http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=29 We wanted to share this interesting article from FEMA regarding building practices in or near flood zones: Designing for Flood Levels Above the BFE

BFE stands for Base Flood Elevation. In the event of a flood above an area's BFE, it is recommended to have a drainage plane behind your exterior siding to allow water to drain out rather than become trapped and cause damage. Cor-A-Vent offers just such a product to allow drainage behind your siding - the SVS Siding Vent System.

The FEMA website also has a tool to generate flood maps for your area: Click this link to check it out.

]]> Thu, 29 Jul 2010 19:11:20 GMT http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=29 siding vent Introducing New 9-inch wide Revolution Rolled Ridge Vent http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=28

Made from the exact same material as the Revolution 11-inch (REV-11), REV-9 is a 9-inch wide rolled ridge vent designed for use with narrower hip and ridge shingle caps. Check out the Revolution webpage (www.revolutionvent.com) for more information, literature and PDF technical drawings of the only truly green ridge vent available.

]]> Wed, 16 Jun 2010 20:29:47 GMT http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=28 Revolution Vent Cor-A-Vent's New Siding Vent System http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=21  Cor-A-Vent's second major product announcement of 2009 is the introduction of the Siding Vent System (SVS), which features new Sturdi-Strips™.

Sturdi-Strips are plastic furring strips that won't rot or split like traditional wood or lath furring strips. They're made from heavy-duty polypropylene plastic and can be power-nailed for fast installation. The 1 1/2" wide by 1/2" thick by 4-foot long strips are easy to handle and tack into place and are perfect for use with Cor-A-Vent's SV-3 Siding Vent to make the perfect rainscreen wall, also known as the new Siding Vent System.

We've talked about the proven need for building effective rainscreens before, and particularly about compartmentalized systems for areas that experience high winds and moisture. The Siding Vent System provides all of this is in an affordable, easy-to-use package. The Siding Vent System comes with 18 4-foot long pieces of SV-3 and 56 Sturdi-Strips, or enough to create a rainscreen wall at 8-feet high by 36-feet long.

Sturdi-Strips are priced competitively against the cost of using treated lumber and the SVS system package will be beat competitive products in price, function and ease of installation. See our comparison data for further proof.

Call us today at 800-837-8368 to learn more about where to buy Sturdi-Strips and the SVS Siding Vent System.

]]> Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:47:32 GMT http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=21 siding vent Introducing New Revolution Rolled Ridge Vent http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=20
 
 
 
 
(Originally poasted Feb. 2009)
 
First Truly 'Green' Ridge Vent, available in March '09
 

 COR-A-VENT, Inc. is proud to introduce the first shingle-over ridge vent made from 100% pre-consumer recycled plastic, NEW Revolution Rolled Ridge Vent.

Revolution (REV-11) is the only truly “Green” ridge vent available (certification pending). The 11-inch wide by 20-foot long plastic vent core is made entirely from the same polypropylene plastic used to manufacture all of COR-A-VENT’s other products. We meticulously capture the excess scrap during production, reprocess it and feed it directly into the Revolution, keeping it out of landfills while also reducing the use of petroleum needed for new plastic production.
 

Revolution’s precisely spaced ventilation channels provide 12 square inches of Net Free Vent Area per lineal foot to promote the removal of damaging moisture and heat from inside your attic. This helps reduce heating and cooling loads when used in conjunction with balanced intake ventilation. The simple, yet highly effective structural design of Revolution supports power-nailability for easy installation on asphalt shingle roofs, while also providing protection from rain, snow & insects.
 
 
Thanks to the exclusive Starter Band, Revolution’s easy-to-handle 20-foot rolls allow for one-man installation. Each box of Revolution also includes two coils of 1 ¾” galvanized roofing nails and peel-and-stick Revolution End Caps.

Available in 2009. Join the Revolution – visit http://www.revolutionvent.com/ for release dates, installation instructions and links to construction details and more COR-A-VENT information. Over 30 years ago, COR-A-VENT, Inc. introduced the first shingle-over ridge vent and changed residential roofing forever. Today, COR-A-VENT is the most widely recognized name for venting residential and light-commercial structures – A Trusted Name in Attic Ventilation since 1976™.
 
]]> Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:42:23 GMT http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=20 Revolution Vent Rainscreens in BC http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=19 Here's a link to an August 2008 newsletter about rainscreens up in British Columbia. Lots of great info about rainscreens and ventilation behind exterior cladding that is pertinent everywhere, not just in Canada. We recommend reading the whole thing, but here's a particularly salient passage:


Rainscreen Walls Benefit From Cladding Ventilation

The function of the airspace between the cladding and the back-up construction of a rainscreen assembly is to provide drainage, ventilation, and a capillary break. Drainage removes any bulk water that penetrates past the cladding. However, drainage alone cannot remove small droplets of bound water or water absorbed into the sheathing, strapping or cladding.

Ventilation is shown to have a significant impact on this aspect of performance in rainscreen walls. A 3/8? to 3/4? continuous open gap behind the cladding, which is common for most residential construction, is generally sufficient. This airspace is typically created using vertical strips of treated wood strapping/furring or metal girts. Proprietary products are also available to create this gap.

Some proprietary drain-mat products are impermeable to vapour, therefore ventilation is critical and extra care must be taken not to block any of the vent openings with these systems. Cladding ventilation reduces relative humidity within the rainscreen cavity and serves to help dissipate the small amount of water that may get past the cladding and through penetration details from time to time.


Absorptive claddings such as brick, stucco, or cement board can also introduce vapour into the cladding cavity and ventilation can remove this moisture as well. Where ventilation rates are insufficient, an inward vapour drive can result in increasing moisture within the wall structure to the interior. To ensure adequate ventilation, large and unrestricted vent openings should be provided through the cladding.


Continuous cross-cavity strip vent openings are ideal. Discrete vent openings (such as the ones used in brick veneer) are also effective but they can reduce the ventilation flow and result in moisture ingress if designed or constructed incorrectly. Venting of the wall cavity at both the top and bottom of each wall region is the most effective–and allows for continuous natural ventilation.


Cor-A-Vent Siding Vent is the perfect product for a rainscreen - a continuous cross-cavity strip vent that allows moisture to drain and air to flow through. And we'll be introducing a new addition to the Siding Vent family in 2009, so check back here soon for all the details.

]]> Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:39:46 GMT http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=19 siding vent New S-400TAN http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=18

(Originally posted May 2008)

COR-A-VENT's popular S-400 Strip Vent line has added a new color - Tan. Already available in White and Black, the S-400TAN has a consistent caramel-colored tone throughout each 4-foot length to blend in nicely with cedar or other stained or painted overhangs. Click the picture above for a closer look.
 

 

S-400 Strip Vent has become the preferred choice for continuous soffit intake ventilation from coast to coast. S-400 can be installed in any overhang design - from boxed-in eave to zero-overhang - to give you the most Net Free Vent Area (10 sq. inches per foot) to go with the cleanest possible look. And with three color choices, the options are nearly endless. Check out our Downloads page for more ways to use S-400.
]]> Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:36:55 GMT http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=18 S-400 New & Improved IN-Vent http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=15

(Originally posted April 2008)

IN-Vent is an on-the-rooftop intake vent for when you can't put ventilation in the soffits or overhangs. Now, IN-Vent offers 10 square inches of Net Free Vent Area per lineal foot, the highest NFVA of any shingle-over intake vent on the market.

 

With 10" NFVA, IN-Vent stands head and shoulders above the competition with more than three times the amount of actual airflow than SmartVent.
 
Below is a comparison chart to see the advantages of IN-Vent over the other shingle-over intake vents out there. Click on the picture for a larger, printable PDF file. For more product information, go to the IN-Vent page on the COR-A-VENT website.

 
]]> Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:16:20 GMT http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=15 IN-Vent Cor-A-Vent vs. Homeslicker http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=13

(From April 2007)

It's time to see how Cor-A-Vent's Siding Vents stack up against the competition, namely Benjamin Obdyke's HomeSlicker. (Check their website - it's well done and has a lot of useful information) And since we like to do the comparison thing, let's start with a simple chart, then we'll go through the points seperately. Click the chart for a larger, printable version.

 

A few notes on the above numbers -

1. The pricing numbers are based on Cor-A-Vent's suggested retail cost for our SV-3 & SV-5 Siding Vent products and the retail price we got from a stocking lumber dealer of the HomeSlicker in Massachusets. The Cor-A-Vent pricing numbers also inlcude the retail cost for the amount of furring strips that would be needed to complete our installation (scroll down for detail) on a 1,500 sq. ft. home. As you can see, HomeSlicker is twice to three times more expensive than using Cor-A-Vent Siding Vents.

2. Our Siding Vents are made from sturdy layers of polypropylene plastic sheets (three plys for SV-3 and five plys for SV-5, hence the names) so they are power nailable and won't compress when installed. The HomeSlicker has a potential compression of 8.9% according to ther website. (UPDATE 11-12-2008: Obdyke has removed their previous Specs page and no longer advertises 8.9 % compression. Instead they list different compression rates for different PSF ratings and leave it to you do your own math.) So that's a potential loss of almost 8.9% of drainage and ventilation space for a product that is already two to three times thinner than our Siding Vents.

3. The best part about SV-3 and SV-5 is the addition of the Enhanced Insect barrier. Now you don't have to provide extra metal or mesh screening to keep bugs out, something HomeSlicker requires but does not provide with their product. They don't go out of their way to mention that on their website, but it's clearly marked on a package of HomeSlicker, which already retails for the salty sum of $81.41 for a 150-square ft. roll (check local listings).

 
]]> Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:06:06 GMT http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=13 siding vent Stainless Steel staple http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=12
(From April 2007)
 
I'm running out of ways to say, "Here's a new product from Cor-A-Vent"... but here, in fact, is another new product from Cor-A-Vent. Actually it's a new option available for our existing soffit vent products - Stainless Steel staples.
If you are building along a coastal area, the salty marine air will corrode just about any metal that's not stainless steel, so that's what this is for - marine or other corrosive environments. (I can't think of too many other corrosive environments besides coastal spots, unless you live on Venus) The stainless steel we are using is Type 304 (thanks again Wikipedia!). Type 304 is an alloy that resists most oxidizing acids and can withstand all ordinary rusting, which could lead to streaking on your overhang - thus the reason for Stainless Steel staples.

Call (or email me as usual) to find out about pricing and availability for the Stainless Steel staple option for Cor-A-Vent's S-400, PS-400 and RS-400 soffit vent products.
 
]]> Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:59:49 GMT http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=12 S-400 IN-Vent vs. SmartVent http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=11

(From March 2007)

Now that you've read about IN-Vent, the on-the-rooftop intake vent that lets fresh air in when soffits are out, let's get down to brass tacks: How good is IN-Vent and how does it stack up to the competition?

Let's start with the competition, or more specifically, DCI Product's SmartVent. Like the IN-Vent, SmartVent is made from corrugated plastic sheets, has a filter to keep rain & snow out and installs essentially the same way. But when it comes to performance and quality of material, that's where the similarities end. For this comparison, we'll link to the SmartVent website to make it easy for you to see what they show.

Let's start with the most important feature of any vent - the vent itself, or the airflow it allows. SmartVent claims 9 square inches of Net Free Vent Area (NFVA) per lineal ft., but that's questionable and here's why. The leading edge of the SmartVent is four plys thick of their sheet plastic, and those four plys might provide 9" of NFVA, but the air entering the roof through SmartVent actually only passes through three of those plys. If you look at the SmartVent installation instructions, you'll see that the product transitions back to three plys, then two plys, then one as it tapers back into the roof deck. The slot cut into the roof deck to allow the air into the attic is positioned just behind the section of SmartVent where it transitions to three plys. What does that mean? Simply, it means that, despite the four plys at the leading edge, only 75% of that air can pass into the attic because of the positioning of the slot in the deck.

Then there's the fabric filter SmartVent uses to keep weather out. This one is actually pretty easy - compare and contrast their filter (top) and ours (bottom). IN-Vent's openings are clearly visible through the air-permeable material, which is black to blend in better with the roof than SmartVent's lighter gray material.
 

To compare the two products, apples to apples, Cor-A-Vent ran an airflow test to see how much actual air passes through them. As an aside regarding the test, it's run on a hermetically sealed roof section, where the only place the air can flow through is the hole in the deck and the vent over it. The test measures the amount of air in cubic feet per minute (CFMs) at 5, 10, and 25 pascals of pressure. It's the same test we used a few years ago to test the ridge vents out in the marketplace - check the link to read more about the procedures. The same test was seperately repeated by another ventilation manufacturer, Headrick Building Products, which has since been bought by GAF. As a result, the Headrick website and a wealth of airflow information no longer exists on the Internet (but that's a story for another day).

IN-Vent will provide 6.75 sq. inches of NFVA per foot, and 13.5" per ft. if installed on both sides of the roof. Again, SmartVent claims 9" per ft. on one side and 18" for both sides. As for the airflow test results, let's go to the scorecards:

- IN-Vent airflow @ 5 pascals (pa) of pressure: 57 CFMs

- SmartVent airflow @ 5 pa: 21 CFMs

- IN-Vent @ 10 pa: 96 CFMs

- SmartVent @ 10 pa: 40 CFMs

- IN-Vent @ 25 pa: 170 CFMs

- SmartVent @ 25 pa: 80 CFMs

More than twice the airflow. Despite the claims SmartVent makes, it's easy to see which product will actually vent more air, and balanced intake ventilation is the most important aspect of any attic vent system.

IN-Vent is made from 1/4"-thick profile-extruded polypropylene plastic sheets, so the openings are roughly twice the size as SmartVent's. The plastic is very rigid and has a third ply on top that does not vent, but provides rigidity so IN-Vent won't smash down when you nail it on. IN-Vent also comes with two 12"-square End Cap sections that are coated with a UV inhibitor so they'll stand up to the sunlight, and their black color will blend in better with the roof. SmartVent's end caps? More of their light-gray filter material.

It's pretty clear that IN-Vent is the best choice for on-the-roof intake ventilation when you can't (or don't want to) access your soffits. Call us at (800) 837-8368 or shoot us an email if you have any questions about IN-Vent.

]]> Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:54:11 GMT http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=11 IN-Vent New IN-Vent http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=10 (From April 2007)

Cor-A-Vent's newest product is here. The IN-Vent™ is an on-the-rooftop intake vent that lets fresh air in when soffits are out™.

IN-Vent is ideal for roofing contractors who need to add intake ventilation, but can't access the soffits or overhangs. IN-Vent comes in four-foot pieces and provides 6.75 inches of Net Free Vent Area (NFVA) per lineal ft. When installed on both sides of a roof, it will provide 13.5 inches NFVA, a perfect match for Cor-A-Vent's V-300 or Fold-A-Vent (FAV-20) ridge vents. A carton of IN-Vent contains 64 lineal feet of vent (16 four-foot pieces) plus two End Cap sections and a bag of 2 1/2" roofing nails.
]]> Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:48:06 GMT http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=10 IN-Vent New Enhanced Siding Vents http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=9 (From March 2007) 

Cor-a-Vent's Siding Vent products have always been a great product for a great price, but now they're easier to install than ever. We've added a new feature, an Enhanced Insect Barrier, so you don't have to install an extra metal or mesh screen over the product.


The SV-3, for use with 1/2" furring strips. and the SV-5, for use with 3/4" furring strips, will give you more airflow and moisture drainage for about half the price as some of our competitors. If you've seen the "yellow stuff" you know it takes a lot to cover the entire wall and that adds up quickly. With Cor-A-Vent's Siding Vents, you install them across the top and bottom of your wall and use inexpensive furring strips in between, The result - more performance for less money.

If you would like to see more, email us to get the Siding Vent Comparison Chart to see just how much money you can save by going with Cor-A-Vent.

]]> Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:44:15 GMT http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=9 siding vent New Roof-2-Wall Vent http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=8 (From March 2007)

Find out about Cor-A-Vent's newest product, Roof-2-Wall Vent

For that tough-to-vent junction where a roof meets a wall.

Each box contains 24 lineal ft. of vent, plus all the accessories you'll need - A 25-foot roll of flashing, a bag of 2 1/2" roofing nails and four Roof-2-Wall end caps to complete the job.

This is just one of several new products from Cor-A-Vent coming out this year. Check back here often to see what else is new and make sure to leave a comment if you have a question about using Cor-A-Vent on your house.

 

]]> Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:35:39 GMT http://www.cor-a-vent.com/blog/index.cfm?p=8 Roof-2-Wall Vent