Vaulted rooms - benefits and issues?

[Benpointer]

Hi All,

 

Our architect is working on detailed plans for our self-build, aiming to submit for full PP early in the new year.  Site has existing PP for a chalet bungalow but we want a single storey house (I am a full-time wheelchair user) of a more modernist design... so new plans.

 

Mrs. P is very keen on vaulted ceilings in the principal rooms, which is very fashionable right now of course.  Our design is currently looking like fairly shallow 25° pitches for the roofs but across the widest span (11m) that still gets you to over 6m at the apex, if the edge ceiling is 2.4m.

 

I like the idea of tall, airy rooms but worry a bit about the acoustics and whether the height will seem in some way a bit 'weird'?

 

I am just wondering whether those who have experience of high vaulted ceilings have any thoughts, comments, suggestions, things to avoid or consider, etc.?

 

Many thanks!

 

[JohnMo]

We did vaulted in every room. Our lounge is 6m high with 45 Deg roof. All others rooms are 12 deg.

 

It's very easy to do airtight details. Your roof structure can be a little more expensive and you have three options for insulation, between and under rafters, above rafter, or mostly above rafters and some between rafters. You have slightly more exposed roof area to the inside of the heated environment so a slight knock on heating costs - but nothing massive. You really want to heat via UFH, not high temperature radiators, as all the heat will end up in the roof.

 

Do not install lights high up, other wise you need a scaffold to change a light bulb.

 

Would I have normal flat ceiling - no way.

 

When very high you need plenty of soft furnishings.

[Benpointer]

3 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

We did vaulted in every room. Our lounge is 6m high with 45 Deg roof. All others rooms are 12 deg.

 

It's very easy to do airtight details. Your roof structure can be a little more expensive and you have three options for insulation, between and under rafters, above rafter, or mostly above rafters and some between rafters. You have slightly more exposed roof area to the inside of the heated environment so a slight knock on heating costs - but nothing massive. You really want to heat via UFH, not high temperature radiators, as all the heat will end up in the roof.

 

Do not install lights high up, other wise you need a scaffold to change a light bulb.

 

Would I have normal flat ceiling - no way.

 

When very high you need plenty of soft furnishings.

Thanks John, that's all very encouraging.  

 

UFH was the second item on our requirement list, after high levels of insulation and just before MVHR, so we should be ok on that front.  Very good point about lights - we are more wall lights and table lamps people but it would be an easy mistake for us to make.

 

Cheers! 

[Alan Ambrose]

I really like our current barn conversion and that’s one of the big reasons. There’s a sense of airiness and generosity (if you don’t mind me slipping into designer-speak) that you don’t get from 2.4m rooms with flat ceilings. I agree that changing light bulbs is a bit hard, but I have a tall stepladder for that. It was 5 years or so before I bought it because a couple of the LED bulbs had failed. You get the same sense from grand houses with their high ceilings and big windows & doors.

[JohnMo]

3 minutes ago, Benpointer said:

after high levels of insulation

UFH requires a good amount of floor insulation to be cost effective - not heating the ground. We did a U value of 0.09. but aim for as low as practical. Aim for 150-200mm PIR or 250-300mm EPS.

[Conor]

All of our first floor ceilings are vaulted. Love it. Zero issues. Just avoid angled windows as they are a pain to dress.

[FarmerN]

Love our 5m high vaulted kitchen/dinning/living room, 6m x 7m

But Stone floor + quartz work surfaces mean it is a noisy, echoey room.

No curtains or blinds in yet, they are being fitted next week, it will be interesting to see how they soften the sound. A few more pictures might help as well, and may be a couple more rugs.

The electric Velux windows work well, complete with electric blind but manual fly screen.

Flys can be an issue next to a livestock farm.

If we were doing it again I think the only change would be to a wood work surface on the island, keep the quartz over units and by sink and cooker. Just putting things down on the quartz is noisy

[nod]

3 hours ago, Benpointer said:

Hi All,

 

Our architect is working on detailed plans for our self-build, aiming to submit for full PP early in the new year.  Site has existing PP for a chalet bungalow but we want a single storey house (I am a full-time wheelchair user) of a more modernist design... so new plans.

 

Mrs. P is very keen on vaulted ceilings in the principal rooms, which is very fashionable right now of course.  Our design is currently looking like fairly shallow 25° pitches for the roofs but across the widest span (11m) that still gets you to over 6m at the apex, if the edge ceiling is 2.4m.

 

I like the idea of tall, airy rooms but worry a bit about the acoustics and whether the height will seem in some way a bit 'weird'?

 

I am just wondering whether those who have experience of high vaulted ceilings have any thoughts, comments, suggestions, things to avoid or consider, etc.?

 

Many thanks!

 

We decided to vault three ceilings and have the DS ceilings at 2.8 Absolutely no benefits But look bloody great 😊 

[Andehh]

Yep, all our ceilings are 3.2 to 4.5m due to mono pitch. Adds a real dramatic feature in room, also meant we could design in Mezzanines for the kids bedrooms with mini staircases

 

Does get echo in the kitchen, with hard floor, kitchen and no curtains... More noticable if multiple conversations and they go 'collide' more. We had blinds fitted recently, but forgotten to check if it makes any difference!..either way wouldn't change it for the world!

 

 

[ToughButterCup]

Center of our place is vaulted. Brilliant. Pain in the Botticelli to dust and clean. 

[ProDave]

We have vaulted ceilings but only upstairs, which is a little unusual.  Downstairs are all flat ceilings but just a little higher than the standard 2400

 

But upstairs is all room in roof and to avoid lots of truss timber in the way it is all a cut roof hung from ridge beams.  That leads on to making it a warm roof with the insulation and air tighness folowing the roof line.  Which gives an unincumbered insulated space the shape of a loft which you can do anything with.

 

The largest bedroom has a ceiling going up to the ridge which then accesses a mezanine above the adjacent small bedroom.  The master bedroom has a ceiling not quite as high but flattened out to give a little bit of loft storage space above it, and the bathrooms have normal height ceilings, conveniently giving more storage and space for all the mvhr ducts.

 

Long drop ceiling lights and stepladders access them for lamp changing.

[Benpointer]

Great replies everyone, very encouraging, thanks!

 

If anyone is suffering badly from acoustic issues we used these 'acoustic clouds' in our village hall - not cheap (£6k fitted, though a Lottery grant covered the costs) but very effective.  However, a village hall, where you might get 60-80 people chatting over wine at a social evening is affected by acoustic issues much more than a domestic house, I should imagine.

https://www.woollyshepherd.co.uk/acoustic-clouds/

[TheMitchells]

3 hours ago, Benpointer said:

If anyone is suffering badly from acoustic issues we used these 'acoustic clouds' in our village hall - not cheap (£6k fitted, though a Lottery grant covered the costs) but very effective.  However, a village hall, where you might get 60-80 people chatting over wine at a social evening is affected by acoustic issues much more than a domestic house, I should imagine.

https://www.woollyshepherd.co.uk/acoustic-clouds/

Could you not line one wall with cork tiles?  They are ideal for absorbing noise?? 

[Benpointer]

15 hours ago, TheMitchells said:

Could you not line one wall with cork tiles?  They are ideal for absorbing noise?? 

I think the acoustic clouds are a little more sophisticated - they hang at a set distance from the ceiling and absorb noise both coming from below and also rebounding from the hard ceiling. Cork tiles? - very 70s 😉 - and are they really that effective at noise reduction?

 

I gained a little understanding of this topic when I was helping our village hall improve its acoustics.  Apparently, it's all about the Reverberation Time (RT60, the time it takes an initial sound to drop by 60dB).  It's very easy to download an app to your smartphone (e.g. ClapReverb) and test this yourself.  Here's a site that explains more: https://commercial-acoustics.com/reverberation-time-graphic/

 

For homes an RT60 of between 0.5and 0.8 secs is ideal.  Community spaces can be ok at higher levels and I was intrigued that you can tune the acoustics of restaurants, for example, depending on how 'buzzy' or intimate you'd like them to be.  

 

Our village hall had an RT60 of 2.3 secs before we fitted the clouds and 0.9 secs afterwards.  Lots of villagers noticed and commented on the improvement. 

 

If anyone has an issue with echoey rooms, I'd definitely encourage you to download an app and test the actual reverb time. Then maybe put in some extra soft furnishings, temporary wall hangings, rugs, whatever you might be happy to live with, and test again to see what difference it makes.

 

 

Edited December 15 by Benpointer

[JohnMo]

Just did our living room for reference 

 

General room size is 6x6m, fully vaulted up to 6m tall. Fully glazed end wall comes out in V to project outwards a further approx 2m. Green area being idea, orange line is where we sit after clap test.

Did a couple of tests with different results 

 

We don't have any issues of note, so unlikely to do the remedial work they recommend - at £3k for materials.

[Marvin]

Hi @Benpointer

 

The old function versus form challenge!

 

Looks great!

 

However, harder to paint, harder to dust, harder to dress windows, harder to sort out acoustics, harder to heat, harder to cool, harder to light, harder to clean windows, harder to vent, harder to build, but looks great. (or replace the word harder with more costly)

 

As we are some of the poor of the parish, wo chose not to vault any rooms not only from build cost but also running costs, however, you pays your money, you takes your choice.

 

Most people buy on looks anyway, and if its your already home, it may well be worth choosing.

 

Good luck 

 

M

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JohnMo]

12 minutes ago, Marvin said:

harder to paint,

Yes agreed, scaffold during build.

12 minutes ago, Marvin said:

harder to dust

Not that bad really - use telescopic things

13 minutes ago, Marvin said:

harder to sort out acoustics

Maybe true, but it's not bad once furnished.

13 minutes ago, Marvin said:

harder to heat,

UFH so not bad really. Only thing that really adds to the heating is a wall of glass

14 minutes ago, Marvin said:

harder to light

Wall lights and a couple of side lights - zero issues.

15 minutes ago, Marvin said:

harder to clean windows

Only if they go full height - or just don't bother.

16 minutes ago, Marvin said:

harder to vent

No difference to any other just plan ahead.

16 minutes ago, Marvin said:

harder to build

Maybe a little more expensive, but not harder. Ridge beam and posi rafters

 

Harder to insulate. Loft you just roll it out.

You definitely need scaffolding inside to build.

 

Airtight details are easy.

 

Cooling is really dependant on glazing, and solar gain.

 

Glazing - This time of year it makes heating easy.

 

[Marvin]

Hi @JohnMo

 

Yes a lot of small adjustments in construction and as I see it:

 

40 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

1 hour ago, Marvin said:

harder to heat,

UFH so not bad really. Only thing that really adds to the heating is a wall of glass

 

To achieve an air temperature of say 21C at about 1.5 meters from the floor (typically the height of thermostat height) in a room with 3.6m ceilings you need to heat the top air about 25% higher... so increased running costs

 

40 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

1 hour ago, Marvin said:

harder to vent

No difference to any other just plan ahead.

True, but more/larger MVHR units and ductwork requiring more air to be circulated so really both installation and running cost increase.

 

The biggest cost is the running costs per year, every year, but it's personal choice. They do look lovely in the summer...

 

Edited December 15 by Marvin

[ProDave]

I can see a vaulted ceiling could cost more if for instance you decided to have the vaulted ceiling downstairs instead of putting a room upstairs, it would make the whole house bigger, so real cost.

 

but in our case the roof design was to get an unincumbered room in roof space.  So vaulted ceiling or not vaulted ceiling was literally where do I put the plasterboard, insignificant and almost impossible to quantify between low and high ceiling.

[JohnMo]

49 minutes ago, Marvin said:

need to heat the top air about 25% higher

Not sure that is true with low temp heating. Would be true for high temp radiators. A 20 deg room would need 26 at top of apex, our floor surface temp not getting that high, so top of room cannot be hotter than the heat source. Other day was -5 and floor was at about 23-24.

 

Just did a check with the thermal camera, the ceiling at the top of the room is 1 Deg warmer than the external walls. Did the other day when it was cold and not much difference either.