kohoutek

Back home.....boo hoo

Just returned from our place and was wondering how to open plan the house so wood beams can be viewed from within, we are going to renew the roof, and will marine ply, felt, batten and reuse the roof tiles, then insulate from within, or install wooden ceilings. Ours are the typical white with a few cracks and sagging?

How do I post pictures on the forum.

Michael/Julie

fidobsa

I think you might find the house harder to heat if you have rooms open to the roof space. I already find with the tall ceilings it is much warmer if you are up on a stepladder rather than sitting in the room normally. I actually considered having a winter bedroom with a lowered ceiling and extra insulation. For the summer you need the opposite, high ceiling, no insulation and thin walls so that the room does not retain the heat from the sunny days. In Bulgaria people often sleep in a different part of the building in summer as the main house gets too hot.

Peter_in_Hungary

When you say "renew the roof" is this take the whole lot off and start again or is it a refurbish keeping the existing timbers?

Do you want to open up the roof to view the rafters
or
do you want to have ceiling joists on view?

I'm not sure what you mean by "will marine ply, felt, batten and reuse the roof tiles, then insulate from within", a standard roof would be breather membrane (aka felt) counter batten, tile batten then tile, with insulation below the breather membrane either between the joists or on the loft floor, but for this part lots of variations can exist and there also may need to be a vapour control layer on the warm side of the insulation depending on the roof make up.
Marine ply is a frightful price if you can find it here, what is its purpose in your roof plan? You say you will "insulate from within" does this mean insulation between the joists, in which case the ply will not be on view and the joists probably will not be deep enough to house the insulation and still be on show. (typical joist = 10 x 15, insulation minimum 20cm)

I agree with fidobsa, you will find the house harder to heat if it is open to the roof. Rooms / houses are heated from the top down and you could easily end up with 30+ at the top of the roof space and need to sit in woollie jumpers to keep warm at ground level, I've been in places like that!!

fidobsa

In Scotland most roofs have what they call "sarking" which is a complete layer of wood on top of the roof timbers, to which the felt is nailed. In the case of slates these are then nailed direct to the sarking but with the Hungarian clay tiles you would also need battens to support them. I'm assuming the marine ply is intended as a form of sarking.

Peter_in_Hungary

The only occasions I have seen sarking used here is when the thin bitumen roof covering is used (bitumen tiles). Some years back 1" boards would be used, nowadays it tends to be OSB3 boards (for reasons of speed of lay up and cost).

heli2010

Hi is the house brick or adobe by opening up an adobe you will lose the thermal efficiency that is inherant in these houses also the ceilings tend to be about 8" thick made of mud and straw

If its brick then opening up is fine but you will need to consider how you will heat and cool the property ceiling fans can be used to circulate the air giving a more rounded temperature also underfloor heating will aleaviate the problem of all the heat at the top of the house

There is no need for marine ply a quality felt and batten will last for years if space is an issue for insulation then look at the multi layer foil insulation its expensive but will also provide an added vapour barrier

Rural Hungary

Don't think it matters whether it's adobe or not - opening the roof space will affect the thermal efficiency of any house

kohoutek, I know it will look stunning but seriously, your winter fuel bills will be astronomical - either that or you will freeze. Remember that it can get down to -30 in the winter and you usually have at least a few weeks when it is below zero day and night. If there are any damp issues in the property then it will be even more difficult to heat due to the internal humidity.

kohoutek

Thanks for the advise, agree it will look the dogs opening up, but realistically once we move in full time, it will need a lot of heating.

We have a structural engineer and a architect visiting us on our next visit in August, so will have a better understanding of what can and will be done.



Michael

Rural Hungary

Best of luck and you'll thank all us naysayers when the two of you are snuggled up, toasty and warm in the winter