Reducing The Heat In The House

[chiang mai]

There's a discussion on the product here:

 

 

[Strange]

2 minutes ago, bobbin said:

Since there seem to be some knowledgeable people commenting on this thread (especially Naam, the AC guru) I would appreciate your thoughts on a system I saw on television.

 

 

This fellow runs a small eco-resort in Cambodia. What he did was install piping underground with an intake above ground (fan assisted) and an outlet into each small bungalow (also fan assisted). These were quite small fans btw. There was a constant flow of cooled air coming into the bungalows for only the cost of running the small fans.

 

Coming from Canada, I remember talk of geo-thermal heating (the reverse process of using warmer temps in the earth to heat).

 

I remember thinking what an ingenious low cost cooling option!

 

He also was treating his waste water by running it through a system of pools with water plants filtering the water.

 

Works both ways geo thermal (depending on region) temps are usually like 72-75F year round depending on depth. So its cool in the summer and warm in the winter. 

[Strange]

44 minutes ago, whaleboneman said:

Hi. Is colorbond a brand name? Thanks.

 

Yes it is. But "Bluescope" is what you will see written everywhere in Thailand. 

 

The retail for the big "factory" and will come out, measure your roof steel, give you a quote, and have all the pieces cut to fit. Its not the same as buying the standard lengths from the local shops, from here they cut to fit and there is very little waste, plus all the edging and flashing. 

 

Edit:

 

Shops like this one near my place are all over thailand. I think I did a hip roof house with a living area of 130 sq meter for about 20k (just the roofing and installation)

 

[Naam]

24 minutes ago, bobbin said:

Since there seem to be some knowledgeable people commenting on this thread (especially Naam, the AC guru) I would appreciate your thoughts on a system I saw on television.

 

 

This fellow runs a small eco-resort in Cambodia. What he did was install piping underground with an intake above ground (fan assisted) and an outlet into each small bungalow (also fan assisted). These were quite small fans btw. There was a constant flow of cooled air coming into the bungalows for only the cost of running the small fans.

 

it works but of course the system has only a fraction of the cooling capacity provided by a "real" aircon unit. the cooling efficiency is further reduced because the air in the bungalows is not recirculated as it is done by an airconditioner.

 

in my home country Germany something similar is used (as it is used in Canada) for heating purposes. not by moving air and increasing its temperature but by pumping a refrigerant or plain water through buried pipes and extract the accumulated heat from the pumped medium. limitations are land size and cost of installation.

[Linzz]

20 hours ago, Naam said:

 

 

 

correct! but hardly anybody will believe you and keep on telling fairy tales how homes on stilts will be cooler because "the hot ambient air can pass below the home".

 

Back up the truck, this is just a discussion and your sarcasm is unnecessary. 

Since I don't live in Thailand as I already said, I am happy to defer to you guys and the idea that if the ground is cooler than the surrounding air then a concrete slab is acceptable and logical. Yes believable too which is why I "liked"  Strange's reply as did you. But I never suggested that "hot ambient air would pass below the home". Nor did I "keep on" when I made one single post. Are you misquoting me or someone else you are not referencing?

On the contrary because hot air rises (as well as being common knowledge and confirmed by some posts already) then how could that happen? But cooler air at lower levels should, with a passing breeze help cool the underfloor of a house on stilts. It begs the question as to why traditional homes were built that way in the first place or is that a fairy tale?

 

No. Here you go:

 

"concrete homes, which started becoming more common in the 1970s, are more sturdy but hotter than bamboo frame houses. "

 

 "Wooden Thai houses have traditionally been raised high above the ground, emphasizing the free flow of air, taking in cooling breezes from all directions, yet providing shelter from heat and rain. "

 

http://factsanddetails.com/southeast-asia/Thailand/sub5_8c/entry-3230.html

 

It seems that there are 3 main reasons houses were built on slits.

Cooling breezes

Elevation above floodwater

Keeping out vermin.

 

Also before you launch into misquoting or suggesting that I recommend we go back to bamboo houses, I am simply discussing as in my original post that looking at reasons and features of the traditional Thai home to secure cooling may not be a waste of time. Steep roofs, long eaves, lattice panels, vents and stilts are 6.

 

"Traditional Thai teak houses offer other climatic adaptations.Rising hot air escapes through vents placed high in the eaves of steeply pitched roofs and is replaced by cooler night air pulled in from outside at lower levels.Many older Thai houses were built on stilts, a number of feet off the ground, to intercept any breezes that may develop in the afternoon. After visiting several of these houses during the blazingly hot afternoon, I am happy to report that the design worked; the inside was considerably cooler than expected." 

 

The Laws of Thermodynamics: An anthology of Current Thought. pp 109-110  Jennifer Viegas 

 

 

[Grubster]

3 hours ago, taichiplanet said:

you can enclose the stilted area to take advantage of thermal mass coolth (absensce of warmth).

 

Some great info on Passive Cooling from an Australian government website

http://www.yourhome.gov.au/passive-design/passive-cooling

 

i use an air-con mainly to dehumidify to stop any mould. As i get older i do appreciate the cool side affect!

I don't care what else is done if the outside air is 40 degrees and it is vented through your under floor cavity you will be greatly increasing the transfer of that heat through the floor like a hot plate. You could however insulate the floor at great expense, but if built on a slab the floor temperature would never be higher than the desired temperature of the room giving you zero heat gain from the floor. Your site is saying take advantage of the natural coolness of the ground, the best way to do this is a slab. The house I am renting that I have referred to as a pizza oven is indeed enclosed with louvers installed for natural air flow and my floor is hot to the touch and my AC is constantly battling the heat rising from this floor. This is many times worse than a hot ceiling. 

[Naam]

2 hours ago, Linzz said:

Back up the truck,

don't worry, i am not wasting my time on stilted and ventilated teak homes where one sweats without airconditioning as much as in a home built "western style". there advantages are a myth as is the Thai fairy tale that a hot water shower cleans the body less than a shower with cold water. 

[Naam]

5 hours ago, taichiplanet said:

you can enclose the stilted area to take advantage of thermal mass coolth (absensce of warmth).

the air volume of a stilted area is not miraculously converted into a measurable "thermal mass" when enclosed.

 

air is a low density gas and has the least capacity of absorbing and storing heat and the least resistance to change of temperatures (thermal physics 101 which i studied half a century ago).

[masuk]

22 hours ago, Grubster said:

The brick oven I live in is on stilts, the floor is hot at all times, I mean hot, heat rises its a no brainer. My new home is on a concrete slab, and I believe the only way to build in this climate.

Eat yer hearts out guys:   People in the tropics of Australia have been living in "Queenslanders" (a type of house, raised off the ground to allow maximum circulation of breezes, top and bottom.)  Also to discourage the entry of  snakes, pythons and various other types of wild life.

 

Don't know what the fuss is all about.  Spend  a few dollars, fly down and have a look!

 

https://au.pinterest.com/kimotero299/queenslander-homes/

[Strange]

6 minutes ago, masuk said:

Eat yer hearts out guys:   People in the tropics of Australia have been living in "Queenslanders" (a type of house, raised off the ground to allow maximum circulation of breezes, top and bottom.)  Also to discourage the entry of  snakes, pythons and various other types of wild life.

 

Don't know what the fuss is all about.  Spend  a few dollars, fly down and have a look!

 

https://au.pinterest.com/kimotero299/queenslander-homes/

 

Yeah but the reason is not strictly for ventilation, and no one is denying you get more of it if a house is on stilts. You get more of a breeze but its still hot. You are not actually cooling anything, just getting more airflow. We have houses on stilts where I'm from too, but its for flood prone areas. They will insulate the floor just like the walls and roof because they are planning to climate control the entire house. 

[Naam]

1 hour ago, masuk said:

Eat yer hearts out guys:   People in the tropics of Australia have been living in "Queenslanders" (a type of house, raised off the ground to allow maximum circulation of breezes, top and bottom.)  Also to discourage the entry of  snakes, pythons and various other types of wild life.

 

Don't know what the fuss is all about.  Spend  a few dollars, fly down and have a look!

 

https://au.pinterest.com/kimotero299/queenslander-homes/

the Queenslander is ideal for the tropics but it's advantages are not "raised from the ground". it's the total ventilation (look at the roof of a Queenslander) and last not least the covered porch around the whole house which prevents most of the direkt radiation on walls and windows.

 

the Queenslander was designed in times when airconditioning a home was science fiction. instead of spending dollars for a non-informative trip to Australia these dollars should be spent for airconditioning. because at 35ºC ambient temperature the temperature inside a Queenslander will be 35ºC give or take one degree or two and that means sweating.

 

[4MyEgo]

On 12/10/2016 at 0:14 AM, Colabamumbai said:

Tried to buy fibreglass or an kind of insulation for the inside of the roof and the contractor told me it was not available in Thailand.  He has done construction in many foreign countries.   Where do you find it???  And  you paid 60,000 Baht? You must have a large roof.

 

Home Pro Udon Thai, its called thermal reflective insulation: http://www.polynum-insulation.com/index.php?goto=bep and yes we have a large roof, the area we covered is 226 square metres which excludes a rear wing of the house, known as (the bungalow) which was insulated with something else back when we built in 9 years ago, it was 64 square metres, now 112 square metres, part new, part old insulation.

 

This stuff is thick, like a bubble wrap on both sides, easy to work with and goes over on before you put your tiles on the roof, the builder we had, said he couldn't put in under the tiles because if he screwed it in with the tiles, it would be raised by a few mil and was concerned with the rain season that water would enter, a logical point of view and suggested it be put in from under the roof tiles once he installed the roof tiles. I knew they did this on industrial buildings with steel roofs already on, and decided he's suggestion was worth a shot, as opposed to him flatly rejecting to put it on before the tiles went on. It turned out to be the right choice as the rain season is over and no leaks.

 

It might be expensive for some, but if you want to avoid the heat, heating up in your ceiling, this will slow it down entering the ceiling space, and as chang mai and others have stated, vented gables and vented soffit boards under the eaves will help, that plus extraction fans against the gables with thermostat controls which I am yet to try and some whirly birds, as much as I know that whirly birds are debatable for some, however I had a few in Sydney, and stood directly under them and could feel the heat going up and out of them, so I have two to install at the rear wing to see how effective they are here, before I go troppo and get more, I will go to whatever extremes it takes to keep the heat out, but those inexpensive vented soffit boards work wonders (like roller shutters on the windows), just touching the tinted windows previously was like touching the glass on an oven when it was on, now the windows are cool.   

 

To end I would like to also put those insulation batts/yellow or pink ones like back in Sydney up in the ceiling, but as our ceilings are the suspended type, I won't in fear that they might not handle the weight ?

[Strange]

31 minutes ago, 4MyEgo said:

 

Home Pro Udon Thai, its called thermal reflective insulation: http://www.polynum-insulation.com/index.php?goto=bep and yes we have a large roof, the area we covered is 226 square metres which excludes a rear wing of the house, known as (the bungalow) which was insulated with something else back when we built in 9 years ago, it was 64 square metres, now 112 square metres, part new, part old insulation.

 

This stuff is thick, like a bubble wrap on both sides, easy to work with and goes over on before you put your tiles on the roof, the builder we had, said he couldn't put in under the tiles because if he screwed it in with the tiles, it would be raised by a few mil and was concerned with the rain season that water would enter, a logical point of view and suggested it be put in from under the roof tiles once he installed the roof tiles. I knew they did this on industrial buildings with steel roofs already on, and decided he's suggestion was worth a shot, as opposed to him flatly rejecting to put it on before the tiles went on. It turned out to be the right choice as the rain season is over and no leaks.

 

It might be expensive for some, but if you want to avoid the heat, heating up in your ceiling, this will slow it down entering the ceiling space, and as chang mai and others have stated, vented gables and vented soffit boards under the eaves will help, that plus extraction fans against the gables with thermostat controls which I am yet to try and some whirly birds, as much as I know that whirly birds are debatable for some, however I had a few in Sydney, and stood directly under them and could feel the heat going up and out of them, so I have two to install at the rear wing to see how effective they are here, before I go troppo and get more, I will go to whatever extremes it takes to keep the heat out, but those inexpensive vented soffit boards work wonders (like roller shutters on the windows), just touching the tinted windows previously was like touching the glass on an oven when it was on, now the windows are cool.   

 

To end I would like to also put those insulation batts/yellow or pink ones like back in Sydney up in the ceiling, but as our ceilings are the suspended type, I won't in fear that they might not handle the weight ?

 

Can handle the weight no problem I put it in suspended tile and suspended gyprock no problem. Its 60cm wide so its kind of a bitch to install but totally worth it. Its sold everywhere. Get some day rate guys up there to install. Even easier with ceiling tile cause you can just push up the tiles and move stuff around

 

This is pretty much what I used 

[4MyEgo]

7 minutes ago, Strange said:

 

Can handle the weight no problem I put it in suspended tile and suspended gyprock no problem. Its 60cm wide so its kind of a bitch to install but totally worth it. Its sold everywhere. Get some day rate guys up there to install. Even easier with ceiling tile cause you can just push up the tiles and move stuff around

 

This is pretty much what I used 

 

Thanks mate, I will definitely look into that as we have plenty of roof space to move around freely via a man hole in the ceiling just outside the bathroom, see earlier picture of building in progress 

[Strange]

Is that a current picture of the build in progress? 

[Grubster]

4 hours ago, masuk said:

Eat yer hearts out guys:   People in the tropics of Australia have been living in "Queenslanders" (a type of house, raised off the ground to allow maximum circulation of breezes, top and bottom.)  Also to discourage the entry of  snakes, pythons and various other types of wild life.

 

Don't know what the fuss is all about.  Spend  a few dollars, fly down and have a look!

 

https://au.pinterest.com/kimotero299/queenslander-homes/

Sounds good if you can deal with the temperature of the day, I'm a fat ass westerner and would die in that environment.

[4MyEgo]

12 hours ago, Strange said:

Is that a current picture of the build in progress? 

 

No mate, that was back sometime last year.

 

Latest photo was July front shot below and side shot April this year. 

[chiang mai]

Be careful with insulation sales here. The aluminium encased 3 and 6 inch bat type insulation is fine although I think it's expensive here, I've got two layers of 6 inch in my attic which gives a total of R72!

 

And the aluminium foil type radiant barrier is also OK, the kind that come in a 60 metre role and goes under the tiles to prevent radiant heat from the tiles heating up the attic floor.

 

BUT beware the aluminium two  sided sandwich material that contains a polystyrene bubble core of a few mill, it's worthless and not useful for anything. They like to advertise that it has a high R rating which is only achieved by virtue of its aluminium coating in a very narrow and controlled test that includes a wood frame, the core does not provide any insulating abilities whatsoever. Rather than buy the latter (which is twelve times more expensive) perhaps better just to buy radiant barrier described above. Do a search on the web on this if you are unsure, there's loads of good info the scam.

[Tagaa]

On 10/11/2016 at 4:34 PM, Psychic said:

I used an insulated white metal roof.

If I stick my head through the hole in the ceiling it actually feels much cooler than the top of the room where the heat accumulates.

So much so, that I am considering ceiling vents so that heat can escape.

 

A few things I did;

 

i used white steel roof panels with the radiant barrier/insulation that is glued in place as they roll out the panels. I used the slotted soffit panels on 100% of the eaves. I also have a minimum eave of 1 meter & 2 meters on the sides of the home that get sun exposure.  I get zero sun on windows except for  the hour after the sun comes up & 30 minutes before it sets.

 

The real trick, and what completes your attic air flow, is to have a ridge vent. When you install the roof panels, leave a 10cm space at the peak. The usual metal ridge cap is 30cm on each side of the peak. This is plenty to prevent wind driven rain being pushed up the slope of the roof. When I built the house the guys doing the roof thought I was nuts and argued vehemently that I would have major leaks. I have NO leak from the ridge. When I remove the access panel & stick my head into the attic space, it's like I am standing directly in a wind tunnel.

 

DO NOT use the concrete roof tiles. They absorb heat all day long & radiate heat all night long.

 

I also located R32 rolled insulation at Thai Watsadu and had the ceiling guys install that prior to installing the sheet rock ceiling. They had never seen it before & it was like watching Keystone Cops as they tried to install it. 5555    I was present for installation of every piece & it is correctly installed. If you are building a house YOU have to be there every minute of every day or you are asking for trouble.

 

I still run the air con every hot day, but I set the temperature at 28 or 29* and as a result, my yearly power bill is less than half of what it was in my first Thai house. There was no additional cost for the white metal insulated roofing. The only extra money I spent was for the insulation - about 16,000 Bt IIRC. Money well spent. It's a saving of over 30, 000 baht every year on my electric bill.

[Strange]

1 hour ago, Tagaa said:

The real trick, and what completes your attic air flow, is to have a ridge vent. When you install the roof panels, leave a 10cm space at the peak. The usual metal ridge cap is 30cm on each side of the peak. This is plenty to prevent wind driven rain being pushed up the slope of the roof. When I built the house the guys doing the roof thought I was nuts and argued vehemently that I would have major leaks. I have NO leak from the ridge. When I remove the access panel & stick my head into the attic space, it's like I am standing directly in a wind tunnel.

 

DO NOT use the concrete roof tiles. They absorb heat all day long & radiate heat all night long.

 

I also located R32 rolled insulation at Thai Watsadu and had the ceiling guys install that prior to installing the sheet rock ceiling. They had never seen it before & it was like watching Keystone Cops as they tried to install it. 5555    I was present for installation of every piece & it is correctly installed. If you are building a house YOU have to be there every minute of every day or you are asking for trouble.

 

I have the exact same situations with the locals every time I want to build/make something they do not understand lol. 

 

Personal favorite is "This is thai-lan, not same ah-me-li-ka" like somehow the laws of thermodynamics and physics change once entering the kingdom. 

 

I had the same when I put white bluescope on the roof. "Why so cheap" "Look no good" "Look like factory" lmao ok go hang out in your cute little sweatbox. 

[Grubster]

2 hours ago, Tagaa said:

 

A few things I did;

 

i used white steel roof panels with the radiant barrier/insulation that is glued in place as they roll out the panels. I used the slotted soffit panels on 100% of the eaves. I also have a minimum eave of 1 meter & 2 meters on the sides of the home that get sun exposure.  I get zero sun on windows except for  the hour after the sun comes up & 30 minutes before it sets.

 

The real trick, and what completes your attic air flow, is to have a ridge vent. When you install the roof panels, leave a 10cm space at the peak. The usual metal ridge cap is 30cm on each side of the peak. This is plenty to prevent wind driven rain being pushed up the slope of the roof. When I built the house the guys doing the roof thought I was nuts and argued vehemently that I would have major leaks. I have NO leak from the ridge. When I remove the access panel & stick my head into the attic space, it's like I am standing directly in a wind tunnel.

 

DO NOT use the concrete roof tiles. They absorb heat all day long & radiate heat all night long.

 

I also located R32 rolled insulation at Thai Watsadu and had the ceiling guys install that prior to installing the sheet rock ceiling. They had never seen it before & it was like watching Keystone Cops as they tried to install it. 5555    I was present for installation of every piece & it is correctly installed. If you are building a house YOU have to be there every minute of every day or you are asking for trouble.

 

I still run the air con every hot day, but I set the temperature at 28 or 29* and as a result, my yearly power bill is less than half of what it was in my first Thai house. There was no additional cost for the white metal insulated roofing. The only extra money I spent was for the insulation - about 16,000 Bt IIRC. Money well spent. It's a saving of over 30, 000 baht every year on my electric bill.

The roof you put on is saving you the money, the ventilation and insulation on the ceiling is not saving you very much. I have the same type of roof, only soffit vents with all hip roofs, It is amazing how hot it isn't in my attic space. I also have 14' walls and only 10' ceilings with a huge attic space and very steep roof. I did this for looks from the outside but it seems that the added attic space keeps any hot air to the top. I must also say that your ridge vent is a very good idea, and if I find my roof ever starts to lose its reflective ability, I will have that done, wish I had anyway, I did in america, I guess I just had a brain fart here. That roofs finish reflects the sun but does wear off in time. Mine is dark brown and still doesn't get very hot to the touch, amazing stuff. You can make a nice pizza oven with the stone, clay, or cement tiles maybe. Even some Thais here are taking them off and replacing with the metal. I,m not sure how much money I saved on structural steel but it was very significant. Probably paid for half of the roof. Good on ya man , spread the word.

[Strange]

10 minutes ago, Grubster said:

The roof you put on is saving you the money, the ventilation and insulation on the ceiling is not saving you very much. I have the same type of roof, only soffit vents with all hip roofs, It is amazing how hot it isn't in my attic space. I also have 14' walls and only 10' ceilings with a huge attic space and very steep roof. I did this for looks from the outside but it seems that the added attic space keeps any hot air to the top. I must also say that your ridge vent is a very good idea, and if I find my roof ever starts to lose its reflective ability, I will have that done, wish I had anyway, I did in america, I guess I just had a brain fart here. That roofs finish reflects the sun but does wear off in time. Mine is dark brown and still doesn't get very hot to the touch, amazing stuff. You can make a nice pizza oven with the stone, clay, or cement tiles maybe. Even some Thais here are taking them off and replacing with the metal. I,m not sure how much money I saved on structural steel but it was very significant. Probably paid for half of the roof. Good on ya man , spread the word.

 

Grubster,  not trying to be combative here, but I'm having a hard time understanding why you do not want to insulate your ceiling space when you plan on running the Air-condition 24/7. 

 

Its like saying you don't need to insulate the top of a refrigerator because its only 25c outside. 

[Tagaa]

" Mine is dark brown and still doesn't get very hot to the touch, amazing stuff. You can make a nice pizza oven with the stone, clay, or cement tiles maybe. Even some Thais here are taking them off and replacing with the metal. I,m not sure how much money I saved on structural steel but it was very significant. Probably paid for half of the roof. "

 

 

 

 

Exactly...every time a Thai person comes in my house they are amazed how comfortable compared to their house.

 

Just the fact that the roof is WHITE is a major factor. White reflects heat, dark colors absorb it. Try explaining that to a Thai...a blank stare is all you will get.

 

Yes, the ridge vent is a major factor and easy to do in the construction process. Actually, if you have a steel roof in place, it would not be that hard to modify. Remove the ridge cap and with an angle grinder with a steel cutting wheel, trim off about 4 cm's of the steel panel on each side of the peak. That should give you about a 10 cm spacing in the middle. Then simply re-install the ridge cap exactly as it was prior to removal. Just use new screws so the rubber seals will be intact/undamaged. Not difficult & cheap.

[Grubster]

22 minutes ago, Strange said:

 

Grubster,  not trying to be combative here, but I'm having a hard time understanding why you do not want to insulate your ceiling space when you plan on running the Air-condition 24/7. 

 

Its like saying you don't need to insulate the top of a refrigerator because its only 25c outside. 

Thats ok, let me explain my thoughts, Have you ever noticed in many very successful food chains in the west that they do not cover any chest type freezers, having cold air in a box is similar to having water in a box, it will not come out and over the top unless forced. Having hot air in an upside down box is the same in reverse. Now convection heat is another story but requires a very big difference in temperature for a significant amount to radiate through your ceiling, 30 degrees difference from attic to living space is not enough to get much convection through that ceiling. The heat wants to go up and the cool wants to go down. With that said a perfectly insulated room or house would be impossible to cool properly and would require that you reheat the air so that when it travelled across you evaporator coil it would condensate on the coil removing humidity from the air. Humidity removal is at least half the battle of an air conditioning system. This is also why you should undersize an air conditioner a little rather than oversize it, The harder the smaller unit has to work to cool the space the more humidity it removes. I have changed out hundreds of oversized ACs in my life because they cool the space so quickly they don't remove humidity, in fact they raise the humidity by a bunch. Relative humidity is "relative" to the temperature of the air, the warmer the air the more water it can hold. The humidity in your refrigerator is nearly 100%, thats why the fog appears when your warmer air in your room hits the freezer or refrigerator air. A frostless freezer has a reheat cycle to take the humidity out, which also speeds up freezer burn by a bunch.

     This is why I feel that that ceiling insulation should be the last effort to stop "heat" from getting into your house, windows, doors, insulated walls, slab concrete floors, and shade are all much more important. Now back home where it gets very cold the opposite is true, the ceiling is the most important insulation you can have.

       I also think that this very expensive foil lined insulation they have here is very hard to install without air gaps were the pieces meet or go around wires, steel, lights, pipes, and the Thai workers not only hate working with it but couldn't care less about this leakage resulting in a blanket of money that doesn't do what it was intended to do anyway. I guess if your going to do it I would recommend using the foil tape that is also expensive to tape all the joints and penetrations.

        OH I should say that the newer inverter type AC's make it possible to oversize your unit a bit as they adjust to the conditions some. Also I do not recommend running a ceiling fan either direction in an air conditioned room as you are only forcing the air across the surfaces of, ceilings, walls, windows etc. speeding up the transfer of heat to your room.

   I hope this makes some sense as this has been my life's passion and I was very effective and in demand for installing, trouble shooting and air balancing HVAC systems in the Chicago area. Yes it gets hot and humid there.

[Grubster]

1 hour ago, Strange said:

 

Grubster,  not trying to be combative here, but I'm having a hard time understanding why you do not want to insulate your ceiling space when you plan on running the Air-condition 24/7. 

 

Its like saying you don't need to insulate the top of a refrigerator because its only 25c outside. 

Sorry I forgot to mention that if you have a Stone, slate, clay tile, or cement roof without insulation under the tiles all bets are off unless you have "very" good ventilation in that attic. I have the new steel roof with the reflective finish on it and has insulation preformed onto it  that costs more than most of the other roofs, but saves you a bunch in structural costs. I think the insulation on it is more for sound than for heat as this steel doesn't get very hot. I think this type roof would be cheaper if there wasn't a place every few kilometers with the very expensive roller machine to make it, making the pay back for the machine a very slow process.

[JaseTheBass]

Shallower pitched roof with large overhangs, don't use storage heaters (concrete tiles) on your roof - insulated metal roofs are so much better.

Sent from my R2D2 using my C3P0 manservant

[Strange]

19 minutes ago, Grubster said:

Sorry I forgot to mention that if you have a Stone, slate, clay tile, or cement roof without insulation under the tiles all bets are off unless you have "very" good ventilation in that attic. I have the new steel roof with the reflective finish on it and has insulation preformed onto it  that costs more than most of the other roofs, but saves you a bunch in structural costs. I think the insulation on it is more for sound than for heat as this steel doesn't get very hot. I think this type roof would be cheaper if there wasn't a place every few kilometers with the very expensive roller machine to make it, making the pay back for the machine a very slow process.

 

I'm on mobile so can't get detailed but again I'm from FL and climate is the same. We got metal, tile, and shingle roofs, central heat and air, every combo you can think of with ventilation, roof design, etc... 

 

We still insulate above the cieling, not only that but nowadays it's all spray foam all over. Top of cieling, bottom of roof, etc. everywhere. 

 

This is in Florida climate so it's not there to retain heat like Chicago. 

 

It is to lower the cooling requiremt for a home and make it more efficient and less costly to keep cool even though it's 105 outside. 

 

Thoughts?

[Naam]

49 minutes ago, Grubster said:

 I hope this makes some sense as this has been my life's passion and I was very effective and in demand for installing, trouble shooting and air balancing HVAC systems in the Chicago area. Yes it gets hot and humid there.

 

everything makes perfect sense Grubster except... the "open chest freezers"

[Naam]

11 minutes ago, JaseTheBass said:

Shallower pitched roof with large overhangs, don't use storage heaters (concrete tiles) on your roof - insulated metal roofs are so much better.

Sent from my R2D2 using my C3P0 manservant
 

only if the by-laws of your homeowners' association allows them.

[Naam]

50 minutes ago, Naam said:

 

everything makes perfect sense Grubster except... the "open chest freezers"

forgot to exclude from perfect sense "no ceiling insulation"