Was my new roof done poorly?

I got a new roof put on last spring. I believe the house has been referred to as a cape cod style — square house with a simple roof and a narrow room upstairs running along the peak. It had improper ventilation so there was mold growing in the empty voids on either side of the upstairs room. Between the room and the roof, the gaps between the joists were stuffed to the gills with blown in insulation so no air could escape up top once it entered in from the soffits. I had like 5 quotes because each person who came out had different suggestions on how to fix it. 

My main concern was that I get airflow underneath the entire deck. I went with a company that used the soffit intakes and a ridgeline vent. In order to get air to flow under the deck above the room, they pulled the boards above it, put down this styrofoam egg crate material and put the deck back down on top. It’s jammed in there so tight that the ceiling is now kind of bowing between the joists. 

Cut to today when there’s 6” of snow, it’s below freezing, and I have tons of icicles both north and south and the roof nearest the peak — that is, the portion of the roof over the room — has no snow on it in most places. It’s a dramatic difference.

I opened up the attic access and apparently on top of the boards they put some kind of blue plastic sheeting. It has condensation on it, at least on the northern side, which, incidentally, wasn’t as cold as the southern side when I checked at 6pm.

Ill grant that we need to block off the upstairs vents, because the rest of the house will be at 68 and it will be like 77 up there, so it’s getting extra hot.

Would you say their “fix” was insufficient?

And if so, what in the world can I do about it now?

If you are in the attic and above the insulation, it should be only slightly warmer than outside.

There should be air flow, usually from the soffit up to vents cut in or a ridge vent. It seems like you have an understanding of what needs to happen. 

In reply to RossD :

Oddly, I’m not sure what you mean by, “it seems you have an understanding of what needs to happen.” 

In general terms you do want airflow from the soffit to the ridge for the sale of your roofing. However, the installation and location (relative to insulation) of any moisture barrier/ radiant barrier (other than the roofing itself) depends a lot on where you are (climate zone). The goal is to have any condensate form outside the moisture/ radiant barrier and that location depends on relative humidity inside and outside as well as expected temperature difference between the two. Since you have snow I’m guessing you aren’t in south Florida, but north Georgia got snow Saturday so we don’t know what zone we are talking about.

In reply to itsarebuild :

I'm in mid-Michigan

"Crammed in there so tight it's bowing the ceiling" in an indication of too big an insulation batt for the bay, which deletes airflow.  Also causes heat transfer and moisture.  We fixed a house where they jammed insulation for a 2x10 bay into a 2x6 one, crushed the foam pans, and it rained inside the walls in the winter when moist cold air hit the solid block of warm fiberglass and condensed.  Definitely have a second professional set of eyes come look, then you'll possibly have recourse against the roofer.   Last year i fixed an improperly installed shower.  Original contractor said nothing was wrong until I sent all my pictures, and in the end that contractor's insurance company paid my bill to rebuild it correctly(then probably dropped them for causing a claim due to horribly negligent work).  

Ok so I’m hearing that the next step is to talk to another roofer and get a professional assessment of if it’s really so bad. I could use some advice for the step after that. Do I then contact the original roofer and tell them they did a bad job and I want them to pay to have someone else rectify it?

i should mention that I expressed concern at the time of install that it might not be getting enough airflow and they assured me that they would make it right if not. However, when I called them back out for the gutter that they messed up and a couple other things, they were hostile about it and we had to call about a dozen times and threaten to challenge the credit card payment before they came out. So I don’t trust them to willingly make it right nor do I trust them touching my house again. 

Without pictures it is hard to say much.  Based on your text, I guessing...

It sounds like this attic space might have been made a room after the original home was constructed.  I'm guessing the ceiling of the room is fastened to the bottom of the roof rafters.   If so there is only about 9" (or less) from the ceiling to the roof deck.  And if you are trying to make that room 68 degrees and the roof outside is facing below freezing temps... that is one heck of a delta to handle in such a small space, especially if you are trying to get soffit to ridge ventilation to pass through the same 9" space.

The reason there is no snow on the peak of the roof is you are heating that part of the roof up through that 9" space.

My guess is that the only real cure is one you don't want to hear.  There needs to be framing installed to lower the ceiling and create an airspace large enough for both proper insulation and an air gap large enough to let the air go freely from the soffits to the ridgecap.  And...you may not have room to lower the ceiling.

In cases such as these I close off the complete roof so that it has NO ventilation and spray the complete bottom of the roof deck with closed cell insulation to at least an R30 value.   Much dinero  $$$$.

As always,   YMMV

The gap up there is about 3” instead of 9”. They look like they’re just 2x4s. 

That sounds like a potential plan on into the future. 

Given this small of a gap, was this a mistake on their part from the start? It seems like it’s a recipe for ice dams, and apparently the condensation is related— especially as it’s come down the wall upstairs too. Surely they simply chose the wrong resolution to our problem and so that’s the sort of thing i can come back on them and say “you didn’t do my roof correctly,” right?

And here are some pics of the bowing, too. 

Unfortunately, in situations like this, being in the right and being able to get any resolution out of the previous contractor are frequently unrelated.

Purple Frog is on the right path here.  In mid-Michigan you are on the border between climate zones 5 and 6, meaning you are solidly in R-49 territory for required R value of the attic insulation.  Using fiberglass batts, that is a minimum of 14" thick, plus an inch or two for air space.  You just don't have the physical space to do that as is, and compressing the insulation not only cancels the airflow as you're discovering, but it radically reduces the insulation value.

You can try to get the contractor to come back but they may or may not even be in business under the previous identity any more.  Even if they are, enforcing any kind of judgment against them will be difficult.

Best of luck - I wish I could offer you better options.  The spray-in, closed cell foam insulation is as close as it gets to a magic bullet, but that's why you pay so much for it.

The guy called me back. He’s going to come check it out. He said he rolled by and didn’t see any ice dams. 

So here are my new wonderings

1. even *if* there is not currently an ice dam up there, with the way it’s melting up top and not lower on the roof is it not a guarantee of an ice dam at some point?

2. do I have any recourse on the fact that my ceiling is now bowing in? That clearly wasn’t what I had hoped for with a new roof

3. He’s saying that if my temp is above 73/74 upstairs, excessive snow melting is a guarantee. Might it instead be the case that they just sold me the wrong fix for my setup — what with only a 3” gap?

4. Regarding the condensation in the attic, he’s proposing that we just need more ventilation there, in the attic spaces on the sides. However, the leaking is coming from ABOVE the attic space— it’s dripping down from higher than that. Is he just obfuscating here? And if we resolve the attic spaces along the sides to where we have a veritable wind tunnel, wouldn’t I still get moisture higher up where it’s all crammed in there and air isn’t really ever going to be able to flow?

i really appreciate all the input I can get. I hate having someone come out and talk circles around me about stuff I don’t know, which is exacerbated by my tendency to just try to get along with everyone :/

Before he comes out, have two or three known good roofers come out and offer their assessment. 

This is unclear to me: Did you hire a roofer to tear off and replace shingles .. or to do a bunch of other stuff like insulation and finishes? When I hear "roofer" I think shingles on the outside. 

Tear off roof and replace shingles. While they were there, from above the drywall ceiling which had insulation on top of it, they put this egg crate kinda stuff and then forced the boards back down over it. 

The egg crate stuff gave a gap for air to pass from the soffit to the ridge.   Are there holes in the soffit?   The photo of the roof, white chimney in the center, is there a ridge vent, it's tough to see.  The missing snow up top could have been removed by wind passing over the top of the ridge, I don't see an ice dam either.

There are holes in the soffit. There is a ridge vent. 

My long term question about an ice dam is if the current behavior of the snow on this roof where the top half melts and th bottom half doesn’t — regardless of the existence of an ice dam right now (although it looked like one to me), isn’t that exactly the recipe for one? Or are there mitigating factors to an ice dam? I thought the recipe was simply that snow melted on the roof and froze before fully running off. 

More heat loss = less snow.  Ice jam = melted snow  staying liquid all the way down (bigger heat loss) and refreezing on the unheated overhang.  Multiple cycles of this and the water will seek easier routes over the dam; like down inside walls.

Okay someone back me up here. On the phone the guy was sounding like he was pinning it on us for it being too hot upstairs (mid-70s). Am I right in asserting that he, a professional roofer, saw our problem and just chose the wrong solution? (Because stuffing that egg crate in an already full 3” gap wasn’t going to enable us to have both insulation and airflow)

oh oh also I talked to another roofer and he said he doesn’t envy my situation nor the roofer who did the job. He said the only way he handles this style house is by putting like a second roof on, over the first — allowing for airflow under the whole deck. I don’t know particulars of that plan. 

P3PPY said:

"He said the only way he handles this style house is by putting like a second roof on, over the first — allowing for airflow under the whole deck. I don’t know particulars of that plan."

Sounds like he's suggesting more air flow, or did I miss it?  Getting more air flow through the egg crate stuff is cheaper than a new roof.  Pull the soffit vents off and clean out the bugs & bees, perhaps make them bigger; shine a light down from the attic and see if it can be seen from the soffit.  My son's house is very similar, his 3" round vents were painter over so many times they were nearly nonfunctional.

Do you know how much insulation is between the rafters, what kind?  (my brother bought a house built in the 1950's and the insulation was untreated folded up newspaper)

P3PPY said:

oh oh also I talked to another roofer and he said he doesn’t envy my situation nor the roofer who did the job. He said the only way he handles this style house is by putting like a second roof on, over the first — allowing for airflow under the whole deck. I don’t know particulars of that plan. 

Ive heard of this as a preferred method. It allows for more insulation and full air passage, but it's obviously difficult and more costly. You'd basically remove the original roof and deck, thicken the rafters/trusses and reinsulate/roof on top of the newly thicker framing.

Alternatively, you could try to address it from the inside by replacing the insulation currently in place with rigid Foam panels (or spray foam, though it's pricey). This would require drywall removal/replacement, but could give you better insulation and airflow at the same time.

Cellulose insulation has an R value around 3.5 per inch of thickness. With 2x4 framing, that's a max R value of 12.25 and that leaves no room for airflow., so you're really seeing less than that since the insulation is compressed in there. That's woefully inadequate for middle Michigan. XPS foam insulation has an R value of 5/inch of thickness. You could buy 3" thick sheets, increase your R value, and still have half an inch for air travel all the way from the eaves to the ridge without any eggcrate baffles. You get better insulation and more airflow at the same time, and since it wouldn't be crammed into the space between the roof deck and your drywall, it wouldn't be bowing. R15 is still way low for a ceiling, but it would be a significant improvement over what you've currently got in every way.

So he missed the first appointment a couple weeks ago. We were out of town after that but there was neither hide nor hair from him. I texted the sales guy twice and then I heard back from the owner who is SUPPOSED to come out tomorrow. So far he’s saying we need more insulation, which is, of course, impossible to do where it counts. But then also more openings in the soffits to get more intake.

Tonight's question: is there some sort of requirement or regulation that he’s under that stipulates that he must maintain a certain R value? Or is it just up to them to do whatever they want? Same with an ice dam — is he under any obligation to fix something like that?