How to Install Baffle Vents

Attic ventilation is important to keeping your house cool in summer and warm in winter. Without adequate air movement, you'll pay more in energy bills. Adding one baffle vent per soffit vent allows the stale air to escape to the outside. While you can install just a soffit vent, loose blown-in type insulation can escape through it. That’s where the vent chute of the baffle comes into play. The baffle vent directs the air out of the soffit vent without allowing any insulation to escape. If you have batt insulation, you don’t need to install a baffle vent.

Portable trouble light or flashlight
Baffle vents
Staples
Staple gun

Instructions

- 1
  Climb into your attic space. Take a good light source -- such as a portable trouble light or strong flashlight -- with you if the attic doesn’t have electricity. Try to do this task on a sunny day so you have some ambient light in the attic through the gable vents. Take care to only walk on the joists if the floor isn’t finished, or you might fall through the ceiling below.
- 2
  Pull any loose insulation away from the soffit vent opening with your hands and place it elsewhere on the attic floor.
- 3
  Set the baffle vent so it creates a tunnel between the soffit vent opening and the underside of the roof sheathing. Air channel openings on the vent should be facing up.
- 4
  Staple the sides of the baffle vent to the rafters on either side of the soffit vent. Attach the bottom of the baffle vent to the wall plate with a staple gun.
- 5
  Repeat this process for each soffit vent.

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