I'm on the body corp of a small, cheap and cheerful complex of row townhouses in FNQ. Main building footprint is approx 60m x 10m, two storey, truss tin/iron roof about 1.6m high at peak, with about five gables to break up the roof line. We'd like to spend some money to reduce heat in the roof and hopefully reduce heat/cooling costs for residents. My budget is $3300 including handyman install. (That's a hard limit unless we go back for another owner vote). Ultimately we will do a roof refurb and reflective coating but that's out of budget for a few years.
I have estimates for ridge vents on the gables, or eave vents, or solar fans (although in the tropics you really need heat extraction at night as well, so I question the merits of solar-only fans) - all priced to fit into the budget, so the number is driven by economics more than strict calcs of the space involved. There is common power in the roof so we could also do electrical fans, but I haven't priced them.
There are variables at the ceiling level. We can't control what individual owners do. A few have insulation, most don't. Also, it is pre-building code, roof space joined up, no firewalls, and not feasible to add them. (If they were walled off, honestly, I'd probably just cool my own!)
All other factors being equal, which of these options would you recommend, and why? Or is there another option I haven't considered?
