Self Build - Yah or Nah to Vaulted ceilings

I would go vaulted, will be back later with the spec

We have vaulted ceilings in our house, living room and bedrooms upstairs. If it's what you like then do it. We have geothermal heating and the place is roasting. Zero issues heating it

We have a vaulted ceiling in our main kitchen/dining/living room and love it. No regrets.

The "space heating" argument is invalid but a vaulted ceiling does have a larger surface area than a flat ceiling so requires better insulation to achieve the same performance, right?

I don't have a new house for starters so won't address the heating issue, my vaulted ceiling is in a sunroom so only really used from now on until October-ish as it definitely doesn't have the heat to enable it be used year round, don't think that's because of the ceiling either but anyway....

I love the look of them but as mentioned changing light bulbs is a nightmare hence I have several blown downlighters for years, maybe don't put those, a hanging down light might be easier! Secondly and this might be just me as I open the doors of sunroom in summer but as many houses now have those big slider doors then maybe they will be open too I absolutely hate the flies! They come in and can't get out as head for the highest point so buzz around the top of the ceiling until they literally die and drop to the floor dead, they never find a way out and it makes me slow to open doors/windows in fine weather. Now if you have the ceiling in a place where windows/doors won't be opened then not a problem!

And finally I don't like the sound if in a place where there are hard surfaces, mightn't bother everyone but if tiled floor, sparse curtains/blinds, kitchen etc may be echo-ey. I have carpet of all things in my sunroom but I like carpet but know that when it wasn't there for years I didn't like the sound effects.


So they are lovely to look at but take into account the downsides if any of them bother you I'd still probably do it again but definitely wouldn't go for the lighting I have.

We have double height ceilings in our kitchen / dining area with a glass-walled “mezzanine” (which has become a nice home-office) overlooking it.

We love it, it makes the house feel a little different. There is a great feeling of light and space and general airy ness. There is zero issue with heating it. It’s probably the warmest part of the house due to it being south / south west facing with double-height glazing. We’ve very good insulation and we got a very good airtightness result, so no issue with heating or heat retention.

The obvious drawbacks - getting up there. I have an LED strip in the ceiling that stopped working after a few months and I haven’t got up to look at it yet. I plan to invest in a mini tower aluminium scaffold when I have a few spare pennies, as I’ll definitely need to get up there occasionally.

It also added complexity and of course extra cost to the build. Most of the trades had no issue at all but the sparks moaned a bit about it as he had more awkward cable runs and wall chasing to do than typical. You’re also building a lot of walls / height for relatively small usable floor space. Some might argue when they see my house that I could have put another bedroom or 2 up there. But personally I feel it’s worth it, wasn’t interested in more bedrooms !!

Vaulted will reduce the BER due to a smaller floor area.
Vaulted should have high density insulation to reduce solar over hating in summer: decrement delay.

You can have a vaulted ceiling without going all the way up to the apex, we did one where the ceiling was raised 300-400mm above the wallplate it gives a great effect and no need for velux rooflights.