# Edge vents - straight vs. tapered termination



## Antixity (Jul 10, 2021)

My wife and I just had a new roof put on, and because our house has no soffits, we asked the roofer to put on edge vents (in addition to cutting in a new ridge vent up top). He admitted upfront it would be his first time doing edge vents, and he only charged for materials.

So he put in Lomanco edge vents (Lomanco Vents - Deck-Air®). Because we have a big bedroom-sized dormer in the front, the edge vents have to terminate before they get to the dormer. This is also the case in the back because of a sunroom shed roof in the middle. At the termination it's just a straight dropoff at the side of the vent. The side of the vent rests on top of a layer of shingles. Doesn't look great (see picture below for the one that looks the worst), and we see on Lomanco's instructions (you can find them at the link above) that straight termination is only recommended for the gable end of the roof, and they recommend a tapered termination for other terminations, where you cut out a triangle near the termination edge and swing the end around to line up with the main stretch of vent. They don't say why they only recommend straight termination for the gable ends, but it's in bold, for whatever that's worth.

So my question is, is this only an aesthetic problem (and that's the only reason Lomanco recommends against it), or is this potentially a functional problem at some point down the road? If just aesthetic, we might just let it be, because it doesn't look a whole lot better (to us) when the shingles gradually come back down to the roof deck over a tapered termination of the vent (from examples we've seen online).


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## roofermann (Jul 7, 2012)

It's aesthetics, a tapered termination would look better. If it were my house, I'd be wanting to have a talk about the ugly gobs of caulking on your chimney. I've made my guys redo flashing that looked like that.


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## Antixity (Jul 10, 2021)

Thank you. So it's not a problem beyond aesthetics then? 

Regarding the flashing, that's from the tuckpointing job we had done 6 days before the roof went on. Apparently it's the old flashing resealed with caulk. The roofer says that he didn't want to mess with it because it looked like it was good (functionally, not aesthetically) and he thought it might still be "setting". I suppose he meant the mortar was still setting?


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## watertender (Oct 5, 2021)

Antixity said:


> My wife and I just had a new roof put on, and because our house has no soffits, we asked the roofer to put on edge vents (in addition to cutting in a new ridge vent up top). He admitted upfront it would be his first time doing edge vents, and he only charged for materials.
> 
> So he put in Lomanco edge vents (Lomanco Vents - Deck-Air®). Because we have a big bedroom-sized dormer in the front, the edge vents have to terminate before they get to the dormer. This is also the case in the back because of a sunroom shed roof in the middle. At the termination it's just a straight dropoff at the side of the vent. The side of the vent rests on top of a layer of shingles. Doesn't look great (see picture below for the one that looks the worst), and we see on Lomanco's instructions (you can find them at the link above) that straight termination is only recommended for the gable end of the roof, and they recommend a tapered termination for other terminations, where you cut out a triangle near the termination edge and swing the end around to line up with the main stretch of vent. They don't say why they only recommend straight termination for the gable ends, but it's in bold, for whatever that's worth.
> 
> ...


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## watertender (Oct 5, 2021)

Had the same issue with inflow vents I had installed. I found that the shingle that lays over the edge has nothing under it but ice & water shield and is really weak at that point. In fact one of the installer stepped on one and damaged that shingle plus I noticed when the roof heats up those shingles tend to sag. I am wondering how long it will be before they crack. Hoping to get the roofer to come back and do it right but barring that figure out some support I can get into that area.


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## rexroof (11 mo ago)

roofermann said:


> It's aesthetics, a tapered termination would look better. If it were my house, I'd be wanting to have a talk about the ugly gobs of caulking on your chimney. I've made my guys redo flashing that looked like that.


I use Smart Vent. Run all the way, but don’t cut the roof deck everywhere for better cosmetics. Chimney flashing needs replacement. Looks terrible. Counter flashing should be higher. This wouldn’t pass my muster!


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