Cooking in the Attic July 4th, 2011

The thermometer on my front porch is hovering around 102 right now and it’s barely noon.

I wonder, if it’s that hot outside, how hot is it up in my attic? To find out, I decided to put the thermometer up in the attic. The access to my attic is via ladder in a hallway closet.  As I was climbing up the ladder I could feel the heat increasing like an angry beast.  I lifted up the access cover and stuck by head into the attic.  It felt like a sauna, quiet and hot.  Some cracks of light poked through the dormer vents. I touched one of the metal ventilation ducts and thought I was going to have a blister.  It felt like I could cook and egg on it.  I laid the thermometer on top of the insulation and could see he red bar rising.

I left it there and started to climb back down with sweat already running off my face.  I glanced at the thermometer as my foot touched the top rung of the ladder. Right then it occurred to me, “what if it’s hotter up here than the thermometer can show?” Sure enough, when I looked at the thermometer again, it had already maxed out 130. I needed another thermometer.

I went into the kichen and pulled out a meat thermometer. I took it back up to the attic and set it on rafter.  I don’t know how accurate a meat thermometer is, but after about a minute it read between Tender Ham and Beef rare: Around 145 degrees.

I thought for a moment about cooking steaks in the attic, but decided against it because climbing up a ladder with a plate of meat seemed a bit risky.

This did get me thinking though.  How is it possible, that if is only 102 outside, it can be 145 in the attic? Shouldn’t I be able to at least keep the temperature the same as the ambient air?  How does this effect my AC bill? And what can we do to keep our attics cooler? Looks like I’m going to have to do some research.

–Mark Alvis