Keeping Roofs Cool: A Key Strategy for Improving Thermal Comfort in Homes Across Three Climates of Burkina Faso

Overheating in naturally ventilated West African housing is usually tackled measure by measure, which leaves the relative value of roof solar control, insulation, and wall construction unresolved. This study ranks them inside one calibrated EnergyPlus model of a monitored dwelling in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Six wall types, including compressed earth block (CEB), were crossed with five roof configurations and run in three Köppen–Geiger climates, giving 90 annual simulations; the baseline and the three leading cases were sampled with 200 Sobol parameter sets each. Roof radiative control dominated at every site, and all twelve high-albedo configurations outperformed every non-reflective alternative. A double CEB wall beneath a high-albedo roof cut annual discomfort by 67.3% in Ouagadougou, 52.4% in Dori, and 72.7% in Bobo-Dioulasso, and lowered peak operative temperature by 7.6 to 10.4 K. Roof solar absorptance and thermal emissivity explained 94% of output variance in the optimized cases. Wall mass and resistance became useful only after roof gains were reduced, while ceiling insulation raised discomfort by restricting night-time heat release. Residual discomfort reached 43.1% in the desert climate. The design sequence for these climates is as follows: control roof solar radiation gains, then add thermal mass, then insulate only where night-time dissipation is maintained.