Mine Did
I once lived under a roof that could have qualified as the setting for “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” at first, this did not bother us much (after all, we never sat up on the roof). However, we did have quite a large attic underneath it. The previous occupiers of the house had laid a thick layer of glass fiber insulation all over the attic floor so heat coming down through the ceiling below wasn’t too bad.
After I Had A Brain Wave
My circumstances changed and I was no longer an employee going to work at the company’s place. I became a self employed consultant who worked out of his home. The only problem was that the family claimed they needed all the rooms in the house and there was no space available for me to set up my “small home office”. “Ah” – I thought – “what about an attic conversion?”
We don’t even store anything up there and it has a large floor area and plenty of height. But, “wow” the tin roof! While up there taking measurements and sorting out plans on how to utilize all this space when, within minutes, I was drenched in my own sweat. I could almost burn my hand if I touched the underside of the roof – no way could I work in such heat.
The Beneficial Solution
Obviously I was not going to be able to work below that hot tin roof so, step one was to construct a sort of inner box within the attic space to form the floor, walls and ceiling of my new office room. However the attic conversion contractor that I chose for the job advised me that there would still be too much heat radiating down from the much reduced attic space between the ceiling of the office and the metal roofing sheets. His solution was to utilize a cooling system based on insulation, convection and forced draft. Aluminum foil would reflect heat back into the smaller space below the roof sheets; a correctly rated Attic Exhaust Fan strategically placed would suck hot air out through a vent which would also allow cooler outside air to be sucked in below the roof through vented soffits.
I am typing this in my freshly completed office and it is a clear sky, hot summer’s day outside but I don’t even need aircon since the Attic Exhaust Fan driven ventilation system above me is keeping most of the heat at bay by preventing it from building up. That Attic Exhaust Fan was definitely a wise investment.
