My house is hot in the southern United States. Trying to add insulation in the attic space during the summer almost killed me last year. The attic was so unbelievably hot. I have developed a roof leak and was thinking about a metal roof on top of my current roof. I was wondering why a metal roof can’t be installed on braces a few inches above an existing roof to function as a roof and shade. The airflow between the two would have to cool the attic, much better than if the heat radiated through straight to the shingles and plywood. We bought a sunshade for our back patio, and I’ve thought about even something as simple as that over smaller homes could drastically help.
In: Engineering
I asked this very question years ago, and I was told it would be too expensive because the under-roof would have to be stronger, and the over-roof would cost a lot too. I wa sfactoring in the reduced cooling costs over years, but thats the answer I got.
Then, I recently saw a “brilliant” project for a school and multi-use building in equitorial Africa. The main buiulding was fairly normal, but…it had an extra roof that covered the entire structure and extended out to form a shaded patio, which also shaded all the outer walls.
The one difference in this project was the over-roof was bigger than my original idea
One thing it didn’t add due to a tight budget, was a full-footprint basement, because basements are very cool year round.
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