Gablet roof

A gablet roof or Dutch gable roof

A gablet roof (in Britain) or Dutch gable (North America and Australasia) is a roof with a small gable at the top of a hip roof. The term Dutch gable is also used to mean a gable with parapets. Some sources refer to this as a gable-on-hip roof.^[1]

A drawback of a hip roof is its reduced available attic space for a given roof pitch. compared to simple gable roofs. In Mediterranean climates with lower snow loads, high roof pitches look out of place, making hip roofs impractical. Yet simple gable roofs are also problematic, since there are important advantages to having lower eaves that overhang the perimeter of the house, such as reduced solar gain of the structure during the hot summer months, and a significant rain "shadow" on the perimeter of the house. This rain "shadow" greatly reduces the moisture content of the soil, thus inhibiting both foundation decay, and subterranean termites, which are common in these areas.

These advantages of the gablet roofline offset the additional framing complexity (which is minor in areas that have low snow loads anyway). A gablet roof combines the benefits of both the gable and the hip roof while adding additional architectural interest.

See also

• Half-hip or Dutch hip roof, which also combines elements of the hip and gable, but with the gable below the hip.
• East Asian hip-and-gable roof

References

1. Virginia Savage McAlester (2013). A Field Guide to American Houses. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, xvii.