Roof Terrace

The entire top outer surface of my house is a roof terrace. I have yet to finish it. This terrace has several functions. Besides the obvious function of acting as an outdoor living area where there are frequent pleasant breezes, it has several other more vital charges.

The terrace floor is at a 2.5% incline; this incline was formed using 'Arlita', which is a construction material made of finely porous clay (similar to the AAC) in the shape of small gravel-sized beads. Arlita is a material that can be used to substitute gravel aggregate in concrete mixtures and is done so for a number of applications because the Arlita greatly reduces the weight of the resulting 'concrete' and also insulates it. The Arlita ensured that the 'concrete' weight of my roof terrace incline was minimal, and it provides an extra layer of insulation for my roof, especially over the south half of the house where the inclination thickness is greater. Furthermore, since it is made of clay, and is thereby a decent thermal mass material, it provides extra thermal lag for my roof which further helps in maintaining comfortable interior temperatures. The surface of the roof terrace acts as a cool roof because it is painted a shiny white; this color enables the terrace surface to reflective away most of the sun's intense summer solar radiation, thereby helping keep the interior cool. I plan in future to repaint this surface with a ceramic-based radiant insulation paint which has the ability to reflect away close to 100% of the sun's radiant heat; this will have a significant impact in keeping interior temperatures low in summer.

The roof terrace accommodates the solar water heating system (which is not yet finished). In a small well-insulated 1.25 m long by .9 m wide by 1.5 m tall shed made of AAC, that sits directly above the bathroom-kitchen partition wall, is sheltered a special 300 liter hot water storage tank along with all of its corresponding plumbing and safety devices. This small rectangular structure is oriented so that its long sides face north and south. The north wall contains the double doors while the south wall supports on its exterior surface the evacuated solar thermal water heating tubes that maintain the water within the storage tank hot. The southwest corner of this little structure contains the exhaust channel from the backup gas demand water heater, which is located directly below this channel. The roof terrace also accommodates a two meter tall chimney exhaust column that lies directly above the masonry stove's exhaust piping, and there is another two meter tall exhaust column with a ventilation windball attached at its top that belongs to the compost toilet vent system.

Last, but by no means least, is the rainwater collection function of this terrace. The entire surface of the terrace floor slopes downward toward the back of the house where there is a raingutter that runs the entire length of the north wall. This gutter collects this falling rain water and channels it to two downspouts located at each extreme. These downspouts flow down into two large rainwater collection storage deposits. I have yet to purchase and connect these two rainwater deposits but intend to do so relatively soon.