Vaulted Ceilings

Old World History of Vaulted Ceilings in Your Home Today

Revered at one time as the ultimate in home luxury, the vaulted ceiling has had its major ups and downs in terms of the love or hatred directed at it by homeowners, builders, architects, and designers. Sometimes known as a cathedral ceiling, one of its major pitfalls that it is a notorious energy-waster. On the good side, these types of ceilings look good and provide a lot of light inside a house.

Vaulted ceilings are usually built as “new-construction,” rather than remodeled into a house with conventional flat ceilings.

Aesthetics

Vaulted ceilings give rooms a light and airy feeling. For one, vaulted ceilings allow for skylights, which are more difficult to install in a conventional flat ceiling. Also, vaulted ceilings can make a small room feel like it has more floor space, even though it does not.

Jevon Vella, in his "Introduction to the History of Architecture," writes that vaulted ceilings were used as far back as the ancient Egyptian civilization, which dates to 2900 B.C., and that they remain in common use today.

Significance

Vaulted ceilings are an efficient, aesthetically pleasing use of space that represent a technological advance over the simpler post-and-lintel system.

Physics

According to Ching, vaulted ceilings require buttressing on the supporting walls to counteract the thrust that their arch shape exerts outward.

Benefits

Different kinds of vaulted ceilings have different advantages: the dome is simple to construct; the barrel vault is quick to fabricate; and the groin vault, although more complicated, is especially beautiful. Careful planning and execution of a vaulted ceiling in your home is critical, and the end result nothing short of breathtaking. Can you hear the guests whispering "wow" under their breath?