I have purchased a 12x32 wood siding shed with metal roof; it has two loft spaces on each end. I am converting this space to be a living space with the lofts being space for sleeping. This shed had two vents on each end (loft areas). Do I leave these open and exposed to the inside or can I put my insulation and drywall over these vents or are these vents necessary?? When the shed is complete, it will have a window a/c and electric heating sources. I am installing a radiant barrier over the insulation in the roof area. Any help would be great.

 

You will need to build this just like a house. Attic will need to be vented. Walls floor and ceiling will have to be insulated.

 

Ok. I have seen this done on many occasion. Have worked on a number of homes with a vaulted ceiling. Essentially, it sounds as if the roof is going to stay vaulted. You are going to use the loft as sleeping areas, so apparently you will be just insulating between your rafters and running whatever electrical, then you will be closing the ceiling up just by covering the rafters. So you will just be following the roof line. You won't have a flat ceiling.

Because of this, you can go ahead and cover the vent up. What you will need to do is make sure that air can move through the space that the rafters are in. This means it would be best NOT to blow insulation into the space between the rafters. Some make this mistake on a vaulted ceiling, and it will trap the moisture in the ceiling. So just use rolled insulation in between the rafters. You are going to then have to make sure that if there is soffit around the outside that you have plenty of vents for the air to go in and out of the ceiling. If you don't have soffit, I would suggest not having any put up. you want plenty of air running through your rafter space. If you do these few things, you can cover that vent up. That is just there to have some air running through those buildings. They are usually used for storage.