Sounds like you have a decent plan. In the areas of the valley rafters you should use the baffles as long as the ridge venting extends all the way back to the area of the last valley rafter space. If the ridge venting does not go all the way back, you can drill some vent holes at the upper or top of the rafter.(last rafter space vented),to allow the back spaces to circulate air.

In our area, kraft facing is considered a vapor barrier.

Sierraeast,

I'm impressed-- you visualized & described this correctly even though I described it backwards! (The space is from the valley rafter to the ridge, not from the soffit to the valley rafter.)

When you say "our area" I gather that you're in New England also?

So, were you suggesting drilling sideways (parallel to the ridge) through the rafters, to vent the spaces that are otherwise non-vented?

Unfortunately I just measured and there's about a 12' long gap in the ridge vent, centered at the crest...

(The general profile of roof is in the diagram below. The dashed lines outline the room that needs to be insulated. The wide gray lines are the ridge vents. The arrows are the downward slopes, with short squat arrows on the dormers.)

Hi Moe, excellent drawing.It's hard to visualize sometimes on these forums when folks explain a situation. Your drawing pulls it all together.

We are building in the sierras of northern ca. so im assuming the winters are pretty similar.I also resided on cape cod in the mid eighties and spent a couple of winters there as well as in and around boston.

If you have access to drill the holes in the unvented rafter spaces, that is what i was referring to.We did this on our rafters leading to a dormer though the difference was that the venting was coming from the soffit.Before sheathing, i notched rather than drill and it called out for the notch to be 1-1/2" x 9" at the top of the rafter up tight to the sheathing.For the ridge venting on the upside of the dormer rafters i did not notch those as it was not called out on the plans, but a builder friend pointed out it would be a good idea to drill some venting holes there as well. I had already sheathed the roof at this point, so i used a 1-3/8" forstner type bit and drilled 6 holes to be about the equivalent of the 1-1/2" x 9" notch At the top edge of the rafters where they meet the sheathing.Similar situation to yours.The rafter spaces leading to the dormer opening in the middle sections upper and lower would have been dead air space with out the notching/ hole drilling and was expalined that you want continous air flow uninterrupted on cathedral ceilings/ rafter spaces to aid in keeping those areas from condensing in the winter as well as cooling in the warmer months, so if you can get in there to drill those holes, or any othrer means to get air flow back in the unvented areas would be key.

We have continous soffit venting as well. Out of the two, ridge venting is the most important, both is best with cathedrals.

The ceiling is coming down tomorrow, so I think I'll have plenty of access to work out something.

Venting some of the soffits has turned out be a whole project by itself. We have had nice perforated soffits, but no slots between the soffits and the attic/roof. This summer, I only got as far as opening up the slots in the lower-right hand corner in the picture above. Soffits in the left-hand side and the upper-right hand corner remain closed off-- at least until next summer. Those soffits are quite high off the ground.

Hey Moe, I hear you! It's hard enough when it's just a standard height wall working on level ground let alone having to use tall ladders or scaffolding, but if you can attack it a little at a time and get those slots cut for the soffitt venting, you'll have a great vented roof system.

Here in the desert where we currently live, the majority of the houses have little to none ventilation.Usually gable vents if that.In the summer the attic spaces get blistering hot. The majority of houses have the hvac ducting in the attics with the ducting not insulated, or very little insulation wrapped around them, making the cooling system work harder than it should and expending more energy.In the winter the attics stay warm so thats a plus for the heater ducting with little moisture concerns like where you are as well as where we are building. Best of luck with your project!