Re:Brutalism is Back
by appleiigs on Tuesday October 11, 2016 @05:23PM
(#12688628)
Flat roofs are also architectural wankery here in Canada, but they are more and more popular these days. My friend built a contemporary and modern house with the flat roof. Thought they were having troubles with leaks, but then learnt it was condensation because of a lack of an attic.
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This is a design defect, not a flat roof problem per se. It is entirely possible to build a house with no attic and no condensation problem.
Re:Brutalism is Back
by honkhonkpants on Tuesday October 11, 2016 @07:38PM
(#12689387)
But that requires the architect to have a rudimentary understanding of thermodynamics, or to actually listen when the engineer tells them what is possible and what is not.
If flat roofs make condensation problems more likely and require more design work to avoid them, that's absolutely a flat roof problem.
Multi-story buildings are harder to design than one-level projects, it doesn't mean there's inherent problem in them. You just have to follow the books and do the math.
Condensation, airflow and thermal exchange issues are dealt with in any construction engineering curriculum, there are ready solutions to most configurations. If you don't follow them the issue is not with flat roof but with your lack of professionalism: moving condensation to the attic isn't a solution (especially since so many upgrade them to inhabited lofts anyway).
I don't understand why you'd use flat roofs in canada, doesn't it rain and snow a ton? That sounds like recipe for leaking and collapsing roofs compared to angled ones.
Incidentally, mono-pitched roofs seem oddly rare, people seem to go straight from flat to gabled or hipped, even in relatively temperate places where snow doesn't pile up much and a relatively shallow slope would be more than enough to handle rain and snow.