Unvented Roof Insulation

Over the past five years several unvented roof insulation systems have been developed by the building science consortium for use primarily in hot dry and hot humid climate zones.

Unvented roof insulation.

In the most recent issue of fine homebuilding martin holladay wrote a piece on insulating unvented roof assemblies. If you don t want to use sips or nailbase there are four basic approaches. Insulation and air barrier are applied directly to the underside of the roof deck are common in applications where designers are seeking cost effective and energy efficient roof assemblies. However architects of these compact roof assemblies must consider vapor permeance and arrangement of the materials to produce acceptable hygrothermal performance and low risk of condensation in the resulting conditioned attic space.

Four options for building an unvented roof assembly. In this post we will show that while the propink unvented insulation system may provide a safe roof in zones 2b 3b if we instead combine dense fiberglass insulation batts or densepacked with intello smart vapor retarder and airtight membrane we can make safe and robust unvented roofs in climate zone 6. But in it unfortunately all four options provided are dominated by foam. Unvented roof assemblies should be insulated either with air impermeable insulation rigid foam or spray polyurethane foam or with a combination of foam and air permeable insulation.

We agree that avoiding sheathing rot is critical and that air permeable insulation such as fiberglass or cellulose cannot be used alone. Designs and houses with unvented roof insulation systems have also been developed and constructed in cold and mixed climates.