Ridge vent vs turbine for new roof in Louisiana

I'm a commercial/industrial roofing contractor. When I bought this house 16 years ago it had turbines and when I had the roof replaced we went with ridge vent. Some houses don't have enough ridge to justify a ridge vent though. Even if you have enough ridge you still need a gap at the ridge for the attic to vent. I've been in attics of nursing homes and hotels where the roof had ridge vent but there wasn't a gap at the ridge for the hot air to escape or the gap was covered by underlayment.

Turbines become noisy as they age.

I find small leaf material in my attic on occasion because the wind blows stuff into the ridge vent. Pros and cons to both.

A picture of your roof would help.

I added turbines and glad to have done so. I just don’t think our ridges were big enough or worked at all .

I have a thread or two here about it and my findings

In general, for attic ventilation to work you need an appropriate amount of soffit ventilation (intake) and an adequate amount of ventilation through the top of the roof or ridge for the heat to escape. You need to make sure your soffit vents are not blocked with insulation as you want cooler air from the eaves to displace the hot air in the attic.

For ridge vents to work, you need an adequate amount of ridge length to properly vent the heat. A steep hip roof will not likely have enough ridge for proper ventilation. However if you have a simple gable roof you can install it along the length of the house. This would be the only time I would be willing to have ridge vents. When installing ridge vents, you/ the roofer needs to make sure the decking has been cut and not felted over for the ridge vent to work properly. This is more of a passive way to vent the attic in my opinion.

I'm a big fan of turbine vents because it gets too damn hot down here and the ridge vents don't seem to vent as efficiently. Ask any roofer that is adding turbine vents to a roof with existing ridge vents or poor ventilation. As soon as he cuts the hole through the decking, he's blasted in the face with saw dust from the hole he just cut. That's the heat escaping.

If you buy a quality turbine, you shouldn't have many issues. I have seen some turbines blow off a roof in a hurricane but that was under extreme circumstances and there was a lot more damage to the house than just the missing turbine.

If a turbine starts making noise you can always have them replaced. However, if you buy a quality turbine and have it installed properly that shouldn't be an issue.

Turbines will spin whether there is wind or not and vent the attic more actively than the ridge vent.

TL:DR - I'm team turbine all the way

Do both but if you have to do only one, do ridge vent but it depends on the roof.
I have had success with both though

In the Louisiana summers, there's not much that's going to help a hot attic. Other than maybe some trees nearby to help with shade.

Ridge vents work, but like others have pointed out - it's all about the installation and the house.

PS: Make sure your soffit vents aren't blocked. I've seen insulation pushed too far out to the soffit and defeating the purpose of that ventilation.

PPS: Changing my comment. Originally, I said, start with ridge vent and add a turbine if it's not enough. That's wrong. Don't do that. Do one or the other - not both.

Roofing contractor here. In general, I prefer ridge vents over turbines. But it just depends on the house. Would really need pictures of your house or if you know how many feet of ridge you have.

I built my house in 2019 and did a monster ridge vent. I was in lakeview New Orleans and my house was facing north. Had a couple years of some big storms and never any water intrusion.

I also added two small gable vents. My attic was huge and never was overly hot or uncomfortable.