More and more people are waking up to the need to better insulate their homes to help reduce their energy bills and cut their carbon footprint. Although this is generally a good thing, it can have some negative side-effects if certain basic precautions are not taken.

One of the most important of these is making sure that your roof is adequately ventilated. Failing to do this can lead to serious damage to your property which can end up with you having to shell out even more than you’re saving on your heating bill.

Preventing damp

Many homeowners chose to insulate the ceilings of the top floor of their homes, rather than insulating the roof itself. This is a bad idea as it can cause significant issues with damp. The problem is that the air in the uninsulated roof space still receives some heat from the house below, making it significantly warmer than the air outside. The inner surface of the roof, however, will be the same temperature as the outside air.

When the warmer air in the roof space comes into contact with the cold roof, moisture in the air condenses on the underside of the roof. This condensation then drips down onto the floor of the roof space where it can quickly begin to collect and penetrate your joists, insulation and through to the ceiling below. As well as encouraging rot and the growth of mould, damp can damage finishes such as plaster, paintwork and wallpaper and can cause insulation to degrade.

How roof ventilation works

Adequate ventilation of your roof will allow warm air to flow out of the roof space and draw cold air in from outside. This causes the temperature inside the roof to equalise with the temperature outside preventing condensation from forming.

The ideal way to ensure good ventilation of your roof space is with vents in the eaves and at the roof ridge. This takes advantage of the fact that hot air rises, meaning warm, stale air escapes through the roof ridge and cold air is then drawn in through the eave vents to fill the space left by the escaping hot air.

This ensures a continuous flow of air through the roof space and help to keep the temperature inside close enough to the temperature outside to prevent condensation.

Help your roof breath with Metrotile

Metrotile offer a number of vent options that are fully compatible with all of our lightweight roofing products including cowl vents, in line vents and hi flow vents. We are happy to advise you on the best products for your roof specification, so please get in touch for further information.

To find out more or to ask for a quote, call Metrotile today on 01249 658 514 or use our contact form for a swift response.