11 Nov Get your home summer ready with effective roof ventilation

Get your home summer ready with effective roof ventilation

Why whirly birds don’t work and what to use instead

Summer is just around the corner here in Sydney. And with the long-range forecast predicting hot temperatures and increasing average temperatures, many consumers are looking at things to remove heat from homes passively and reduce reliance on expensive air conditioning.

Roof ventilation systems make sense. In Australia’s summer months, heat getting trapped in your roof cavity can reach temperatures of more than 50 degrees Celsius. That can make your living and sleeping areas uncomfortable too.

To try to extract this heat, many customers look at popular solutions like whirly birds.

But at Xchange Air, we don’t sell whirly birds. Why? Quite simply, because they’re not very effective. This is especially true on those hot, still days with no relieving breeze in sight. No breeze equals no movement of the whirly bird which equals no heat extraction. And with a roof full of hot air, even when there is a breeze, a few whirly birds just can’t physically move enough air to increase your comfort. To add yet more minus points, whirly birds also remove hot air from your home in winter when you want to keep your house cosy!

So what do we recommend instead of whirly birds?

Of course, we don’t expect you to suffer through living in a house that’s more like an oven than a comfortable haven! Instead of whirly birds, we’ve got a selection of thermostatically driven roof ventilation products that kick into gear when preset temperatures are reached.

What these products do is combine vents to introduce fresh air into the roof cavity and powered fans (we offer both solar powered and mains powered) to extract the hot air from the roof cavity. Because the fans are powered rather than relying on an external breeze, they will work on even the stillest days. With these systems dramatically reducing the need to use other cooling systems within the home like air conditioning units, the cost of powering the fans is evened out – or in the case of the solar powered fans, the running costs are negligible.

By strategically placing vents and fans in the right places within the roof space, we can help to lower the roof temperature by 20 degrees Celsius or even more. We recommend placing fans and outgoing vents high in the roof space (as hot air rises), and placing incoming vents low in the roof, ideally under the eaves out of direct sunlight, to draw in cooler air.

Could roof ventilation help to keep your family comfortable this summer?

We’d love to talk to you about the variety of clever and cost effective roof ventilation systems available. With the right choices, you can lower both your home’s temperature and your power bills from running expensive air conditioning systems more than absolutely necessary.

We offer a free home assessment (within the Sydney metro area) to help you determine the best way to keep your home comfortable all year round. Phone us on 02 9427 8800 to make a booking.

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