I'm working on a quote on a house that has a small bat problem. This house has no attic and no soffits just an insulated air space of about 8" between the roof and ceiling. In order to vent this air space the builder left about a one inch gap behind the facia board in various places. If I foam, caulk or trim out these spots I'll stop the ventilation. Any words of wisdom from the forum? The two options I've thought of are using 8 foot strips of soffit vent bent in a 90 degree and screwed in place or maybe using the XCLDR material sold by WCS, but I don't know if that material will breath. The other problem this house has is wasp and hornet nests everywhere, by using the soffit trim with it's 1/8" vent holes I could exclude both the bats and wasps.
Please don't ask for pictures I will never develop that skill, you have no idea how long it took me to type this!

Hey Dave,

Xcluder doesn't breathe, it is very very dense, we use it in non venting places but unfortunately can't use it in the others.
Some folks use the Air conditioning filter materials from walmart or home depot, it is more porous and likely breathes a bit.

Depending on the width of the space and cracks we use a product called kwik mesh from lowes. It is sold in widths of 4" - 12"
and it can be painted to look the same as the house if need be. Have had venting issues where we used this and it is a nice small
mesh pattern, far smaller than 1/4" hardware cloth and is easy to affix to wood and exteriors.

Unlike some of the gurus I refer to I've only been after this 1.5 years so I'd look for some of them to weigh in with great advice.
I've seen a bunch of work done that wasn't taking into account the building and that has taught me plenty in the last year.

Hope that helps, not sure exactly as you say "pictures" would be helpful, but understand

Justin

I've used 1/8" bee screen to solve problem like this one. I leave the screen "as is" if in hidden locations or paint to match (including all fasteners) in exposed areas.

Hardware Cloth

If the house has gutters on it there could be a problem with ice dams . Is there drip edge along the roof ply . You could lift that then slip vent strip behind it then screw it . That would hold the top . And look good . You can't just bow the vent strip it will catch water and funnel in the house . maybe double stack the fascia board to hold the bottom edge of the vent . You could rip down the 1+ to line up with the bottom . You could per paint it before you nail it on . I would take my saw and cut a opening all the way down so it gets vent between each rafter so his roof doesn't rot out . It needs ridge vent at the top to so the air will pass threw . There could be a 2+ ridge all the way across so it would need to be cut wider than if it was trusses .

Roofing | Soffit Vents
www.ebuild.com/gateway/vents-soffit.hwx
Soffit Vents provide essential ventilation for a home's attic space. Soffit Vents can be selected to match or compliment a home's color and roofing composition.. This is what pulte homes uses for there soffit vent. This stuff could be installed . Ive used a million miles of this stuff . It's like 1"+1" and it's honey combed . If you took the vent strip and placed a peace along the edge you could mark how wide you're saw cut will need to be . Then just screw it from the top to hold it in place and chalk any gaps . It can be painted as well

HD I bought a roll of the kwik mesh just to play with it and it will come in handy elsewhere. I have 200 feet of roof line to do and am trying to avoid having to trim it, with a top and bottom edge that means 400feet. Bee screen I don't even know what that is, might be similar. Tim it's a 300K+ house I don't think they would like hardware cloth. Pesk no ridge vents on the house at all and they won't rebuild the house just to eliminate a couple dozen bats. First step is to get them to accept the quote which around here is way less then 50% chance. People just won't spend money on something like this. I remember one lady with a 1890's vintage Victorian home that had bats so bad when the electrician pulled an outlet out of the wall guano poured out on the floor, buckets worth!! I gave her a quote of $6000, she laughed and said "6 grand to fill holes?" I said I guess if you look at it in it's most basic element, yes 6 grand to fill holes.

Wow I could never live In a house like that . People must just get use to it or something . Must of be some major Oder . Wonder how many pounds of mouth balls have been placed around that house

It really didn't smell that much. I did an attic inspection and the guano wasn't that much it was mostly in the walls. This house was A sieve and had bats accessing holes down to waist level. In reflection I'm glad I didn't get the job, I think I would have lived to regret it. One good thing I got out of that inspection was one of my funniest stories and someday if the "this happened to me" gets straightened out I might tell it.

Dave,
Having trouble imagining this gap you're trying to secure. I'm assuming by your later comments that this gap is visible from the ground. Yeah, pictures would be helpful. You got a kid in the house? Let them post.
Without that, I'd have to say Cobra Vent if you were thinking along the lines of Excluder. CV is designed to breathe, but I'm wondering how you're going to secure it in place. Sealant or construction adhesive is going to diminish the breathability. Besides, cutting 200 feet of CV to proper size wouldn't be fun. As far as the hardware cloth goes, if the gap is higher than 1 story, it'll pretty much disappear when the screening is painted the same color as the surrounding structure. I use 1/4" hardware cloth screening for all gable vents and paint it and the screw heads to match (BTW, roll it on, don't spray it). More than once I had to break out the binoculars to prove to a customer that the screening was installed on 2nd or 3rd story gable vents. Rustoleum and Valspar do a decent job of providing matching colors for most situations. However, greens and blues are always tough to match and occasionally so are browns. Might try installing a short sample, get off the ladder to see how it looks from the ground, then see what the owner thinks.

What they didn't teach you about gaps in bat school USNret .

I hate to drag this back to the top but I'm still searching for a good solution. I searched all over town for Cobra Vent as many suggested but what I found is not what I expected. I thought Cobra was a mat of woven mesh material, what I found is a corrugated plastic about 5/8" thick and 7" wide and it has a kind of membrane in the middle. Billings is a tough market to find decent exclusion materials. I'm dealing with roofing suppliers that don't carry what the big city boys have. Any other suggestions?

Cobra Vent is only at Home Depot I believe. Looks like a wide roll of Scotch Brite.

Here is a link to the stuff you are looking for. Cobra vent

I found the same thing on line and took a picture of it to the local supplier, he kept showing me that plastic stuff saying it's the same thing. What do expect from a bunch of guys all dressed like vatos. It was like being back in San Diego except there were no pretty Mexican girls around. I'll go back to the Home Despot and look again. I may need someone to buy it for me and ship it.

I use that cobra vent for every thing even. If I need to caulk a large gap I'll use it for a backer so it don't take as much caulk to fill in. when I sell a ridge vent job. I put down 8" wide 1/4" hardware cloth then the vent then shingle. it's 12" wide by 20' long and costs about $55.oo a roll.

It should be in with the plastic ridge vents. Will be shrink wrapped in blue and white plastic and looks like a roll of bat insulation. http://www.aiaroofing.com/images/Cobra-Exhaust-vent-Roll.gif

I have never seen it at our home depot or lowes. I did find some at a local lumber yard, but bought the last 2 rolls they had (sorry Dave) I want to know where Dew gets it for 55.00 a roll!

Well like I said earlier, our box stores aren't up to snuff. I went back to Home Depot and after a thorough search I found some. It was on the wrong shelf, in the wrong location, upside down and stuffed at the back of the shelf, all three rolls. So much for Merchandising 101, front and face all products. It is $59.45 a roll which sounds just slightly higher then what some of you said, but at least I found some.
And this is the answer to my exclusion, I think with a small bead of caulk or adhesive and a good tight fit it will work just fine.
Thank you all.