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Water entering your attic space can soak the insulation and can lead to collapsed ceilings. Water can get in where roof covering is lost, through attic vents, and through soffits. Gable end vents and soffit failures are the two main areas in the ventilation system that routinely let water into your attic. See Soffits for ideas about strengthening your soffits.

Gable end vents are not made to keep water out in a hurricane (click image for larger version)

Gable End Vents: Even though gable end vents may have louvers designed to keep water out, they are not designed to keep out water driven by hurricane force winds. The louvers would have to be at least 6 to 10 inches high to have any hope of keeping the water out. Even then, the flow of air would likely keep the water moving with it into the attic. Gable vents should ideally be covered from the outside with sheets of plywood; shuttered as if they were windows. As an alternate, you can cover the vents from inside the attic; but, if you do this you will need to try and seal any places where water could dribble down into the wall. Whichever approach you select, you should also take precautions to try and seal the "shutters" to the trim boards around the edges of the gable end vent. Attaching stick on weather stripping to the "shutters" so that it is compressed between the shutter and the trim boards would be a good way to try to provide the desired seal. Install permanent anchors for these covers using hurricane shutter anchors.

Typical hanger bolt style permanent anchors for wood frame gable ends with thin veneers (click image for larger version)	Installing permanent anchors for shuttering of gable end vent (click image for larger version)

You can shutter gable end vents the same way you would shutter a window or door. (click image for larger version)

For do-it-yourself shutter options and anchor installation details see Do-It-Yourself Shutters.

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