It is so nice to find something that is extremely practical and yet is so beautiful to the eye! Attic spaces in frame houses can be real heat conductors when the sun shines on them and heats the airspace. The problem is so easily fixed with gable vents, those little shuttered windows that allow the air to pass thru and keep your ceilings cool. Almost all the housing developments include these automatically, but if you have an older house or in your building, you can select a pre-finished vent that will complement your style and do the job. You don’t have to be a finish carpenter to cut the louvers and mount them in a frame. The whole gable vent comes ready to install, you just cut a hole the shape of the frame, drop it in and secure it. What could be easier!

There is a range of styles to choose from that will be pleasing to anyone’s taste, style and decor. Some of the gable vents are round, like portholes. Some are half rounds, some triangular, some plain squares, some look like a shuttered window. Choosing can be hard – you have to visualize how you want this delightful finishing touch to look like and set with the rest of the style of your house. Pre-finished gable vents also come in a variety of sizes to fit the allotted space making them very easy to instal.

After this exercise, it is necessary to choose the perfect material. It would be a good idea to get help with the expected life of the various materials. There are some aluminum ones – these probably need to be painted, although some models probably have a baked on paint finish. Vinyl windows have come to be almost the only window frame material of late, and the gable vents made of vinyl also have that neat, tidy white look. Some vinyl gable vent frames are nicely finished with decorated scrolling.

If you live in a rustic house, wooden gable vents, already finished and ready to drop in are available to you. You can have a natural finish with weatherproof coatings or stain and varnish will give you the chance to blend with the rest of the trim in your exterior. Other exotic material for gable vents is urethane, a product that can mimic wood, is very durable, but apparently doesn’t allow as much airflow as some of the other materials. So the material you choose needs to not only be durable but also stylish to blend well with your home.

Whatever type you choose, you have the possibility of adding more than one vent and these vents in different sizes and styles can be used as decorator details that provide a useful function for your home. Almost all of the prefabricated vents are screened on the inside to keep out the winged marauders. Who wants a wasp nest buzzing around the attic keeping us awake at night and dive-bombing us when we leave the house?


When looking for an expert in both writing and custom gable vents, look no further than to Simon Douglass. Simon has been writing articles for Adams All Natural Cedar for several years now.