Survey of saddle roof knee wall height

Hello everyone,

I would like to ask out of pure interest if there are any builders here who have constructed a gable roof and intentionally did not set the knee wall as high as possible? Many are restricted by development plans, but some are not.

We built a gable roof with a knee wall of 1.30m (interior measurement), a roof pitch of 38 degrees, and just under 170 sqm of living space in 2018/2019. Since we don’t have a development plan here, we could have built differently/higher. But we chose not to for the following reasons:

- We actually like sloping ceilings, as long as we’re not talking about a knee wall of 40 cm. It feels especially cozy in the bedrooms
- We are both only 170 cm tall and therefore hardly feel restricted. If we were taller, the situation would probably be different
- At the time, a gable roof with a very high knee wall did not appeal to us visually at all (it somehow looks "long-legged"); nowadays I (my better half doesn’t) also find houses with a high knee wall and a flatter roof very stylish. But the attic space becomes smaller as a result.

I’m really looking forward to your answers.

Best regards

We built a gable roof with a knee wall of 1.30m (interior dimension), a roof pitch of 38 degrees, and just under 170 sqm of living space in 2018/2019.

In my opinion, that is a very practical dimension. I recommend 120 +/- 20 cm, because such a knee wall on the one hand completely substitutes a dwarf wall, but on the other hand does not place the window sill too high (as I explained three months ago in "How the Knee Wall Influences the Window Issue in the Attic").

We actually like sloping ceilings, as long as we are not talking about a knee wall of 40 cm. It feels somehow cozy, especially in the bedrooms.

I refer to a 40 cm knee wall as a "vacuum cleaner knee wall," because it only facilitates floor cleaning in the attic but would still not offer a place for a bed along the eaves-side exterior wall.

If we had had the possibility from the development plan side, we would certainly have built a higher knee wall than the maximum possible of 1.0 m. However, we probably would not have gone over 1.3 - 1.4 m with a roof pitch of 45°.

With the now 1 m, we ultimately manage well too. Limitations are only noticeable in the furnishing, due to the somewhat limited available space for furniture. In terms of the living experience, however, we do not miss anything, and especially the children keep telling us how cozy they find it under the sloping roofs. However, it should not be much less than 1 m...

The traditional construction here is without a knee wall, which is why a maximum of 75cm on the outside as well as a gable roof of 35-45° are specified for us. We built with 75cm and 38° and installed the attic ventilation in the knee wall areas. Inside, depending on the size of the boxing-in, we have knee wall heights between 75cm and 1m, which honestly is not much. From the outside, the 75cm somehow doesn't quite fit – from today's perspective I would probably go more towards 45° with the lowest possible knee wall to adapt to the local appearance (see background):



If I had a free choice, I would probably tend more towards a high knee wall with a flat roof.

The traditional construction here is without a knee wall, which is why a maximum of 75cm on the outside and a gable roof of 35-45° are specified for us. We built with 75cm and 38° and installed the attic ventilation in the sloped ceilings. Inside, depending on the size of the boxing-in, we have knee wall heights between 75cm and 1m, which honestly is not much. From the outside, the 75cm somehow doesn't quite fit - from today’s perspective, I would rather go towards 45° with the lowest possible knee wall to adapt to the local appearance (see background):

[ATTACH alt="Haus mit Zuwegung nach Einzug (klein).JPG"]67835[/ATTACH]

If I had free choice, I would probably lean more towards a high knee wall with a flat roof.

That is a very beautiful house. Due to the short roof overhang, it doesn't look that low at all with the 75cm. I would probably now also build a somewhat taller house with a flat roof. But then the problem of the smaller attic remains, since we don't have a basement.

With us, the wall goes up 2.65 meters, then comes the roof with 22°. We don’t have an attic, but you can see the [Sichtdachstuhl] from the inside, so the wooden boards and beams. In the future, we want to have a carpenter install high levels in the children's rooms, there will still be enough headroom :)