Browse Forums General Discussion 1 Jul 30, 2007 4:17 pm My wife and I are house hunting and have come across a beautiful house recently. The only problem is it has a flat roof as opposed to a pitched roof.
Can anyone tell me what the advantages or disadvantages are for having a flat roof?? We really adore the property but just not sold on the flat roof.. Re: Flat roof - disadvantages??? 2Jul 30, 2007 4:57 pm Is the roof made in colourbond? It might be a bit noisy when it rains if it's colourbond.
If it's concrete, you might get a few small water ponds if the surface is not flat. If there's any crack, you will get damaged ceiling... Might want to get a professional inspector to have a check first. This reminds me about an old house I seen before with flat roof and the shape of "piano" at the front and it looks really nice. But the house wasn't welly maintained, so the buyer demolish it and build a new 2 storey house... Re: Flat roof - disadvantages??? 3Jul 30, 2007 8:03 pm Do you know how the house is heated and cooled? Because sometimes, there might not be enough space in the ceiling for the air con/heating. Our house is half flat but there was just enough space for air con. Also, if you put solar panels on they might need to be raised to get all the advantages of the sun. I think. Re: Flat roof - disadvantages??? 4Jul 31, 2007 9:12 am Check it is well insulated. A flat roof has litle air gap between the roof and the ceiling and heat gets pushed down into the room and any heating in winter can goe up through it at night if it is not well insulated.
If you love the house, there is nothing wrong with a flat roof in my books. I've owned pitched and flat roofed places - ie extensions out the back that are flat and never had any issues, my current verandah is very flat and it is fine too Providing the roofing material is in good nick - you should be fine - have an engineer check it and away you go and make an offer. Steve Re: Flat roof - disadvantages??? 5Jul 31, 2007 9:30 am Probably a good idea to check it after a bit of rain. Re: Flat roof - disadvantages??? 6Jul 31, 2007 9:35 am 3timesbuilda Probably a good idea to check it after a bit of rain. Oh no, please, no more rain for the next 2 months. Our construction is going to start and the last thing we want (other than interest rate rise) is rain... What if you just pour some water on the roof ? Re: Flat roof - disadvantages??? 7Jul 31, 2007 9:49 am ahuang What if you just pour some water on the roof ? That would be wasting a precious resource!! (Did I just say that?? ) Re: Flat roof - disadvantages??? 8Jul 31, 2007 10:51 am Water has this funny habit of running downhill pretty easily
The only time you will generaly see an issue with a flat roof leaking is when it is blowing a gale and the water is driven up under the flashing. My last place had a flat roof extension out the back - facing south (where our storms came from) and I never had an issue with it leaking. And good to see you not wasting that precious resource Matt, as that would mean less water would be available for growing grapes or making beer with Re: Flat roof - disadvantages??? 9Jul 31, 2007 7:39 pm If you love the house minus the flat roof, its not too difficult a project to take the roof off and put a trussed-roof on. Re: Flat roof - disadvantages??? 10Aug 01, 2007 2:17 pm Some people prefer flat, it gives a bit extra space outdoors. Re: Flat roof - disadvantages??? 11Aug 01, 2007 3:28 pm We've got a flat roof in the front and rear sections of the house, mainly due to the specialised design of our house.
Issues: -Noisy when it rains - it's actually not as noisy as we thought it would be, turns out we've got pretty good insulation. We don't mind the sound of the rain, we find it relaxing especially when we're sleeping. One thing to consider though is box gutters. We've got them and you can here the water accumulating in them, swirling around and you can hear these strange harmonics as the water flows into the downpipes. That's the loudest parts but it's no big deal. -Can't access roof space - now that we've built the place we can't actually add any wiring or anything in the flat roof areas as there's simply no access. Apparently the only way to get access is to remove the roof sheets but that sounds expensive (and I want to put some ethernet cable in now ). Otherwise, I think the flat roof actually looks fairly modern. Re: Flat roof - disadvantages??? 12Aug 02, 2007 11:46 am Dukekamaya If you love the house minus the flat roof, its not too difficult a project to take the roof off and put a trussed-roof on. That's a good idea! I got another idea, how about leave the roof as it is and add another floor on top! If it's in full brick, with the flat roof it should be much easier to add extra floor compared to the non-flat roof houses. Re: Flat roof - disadvantages??? 13Aug 03, 2007 7:51 pm Theres just a liitle less on the demolition side, otherwise it doesn't really make any difference at all. Re: Flat roof - disadvantages??? 14Aug 07, 2007 2:29 pm Just as an update - our offer was not accepted on the flat roofed house anyway.. The good news is that now we have purchased a different house that we love even more..
Thanks you all for the suggestions Re: Flat roof - disadvantages??? 16Aug 07, 2007 2:41 pm I am building a house basicaly the same size as my father. He has a flat roof and ours pitched.
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