why do attics get so much hotter than inside and even outside?
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To put it pretty simply, they’re acting quite similarly to a greenhouse. It has the sun heating the materials right on top of it which radiates that heat into it, and it doesn’t have insulation on the actual roof in order to mitigate that (the insulation is instead put on the “floor” where the ceiling of the living space is). Additionally since there’s a layer of insulation to the living space and because they don’t typically have HVAC run to them as it would be wasteful, they can’t really benefit from the AC in the living space.
Hot air rises and, once it reaches the attic, has no where else to go. Additionally, attics are not usually insulated from the outside, so the sun beating down on the (usually dark colored) roof will continue to heat up the hot air that is there.
To prevent things from getting too hot attics typically have fans to blow out hot air, but these are often controlled by a thermostat, and that thermostat is usually set at a rather high temperature to prevent it from simply being on all the time.
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