The double-skin roofs investigated in this paper are formed by adding a metallic screen on an existing sheet metal roof. The system enhances passive cooling of dwellings and can help diminishing power costs for air conditioning in summer or in tropical and and countries. In this work, radiation, convection and conduction heat transfers are investigated. Depending on its surface properties, the screen reflects a large amount of oncoming solar radiation. Natural convection in the channel underneath drives off the residual heat. The bi-dimensional numerical simulation of the heat transfers through the double skin reveals the most important parameters for the system's efficiency. They are, by order of importance, the sheet metal surface emissivity, the screen internal and external surface emissivity, the insulation thickness and the inclination angle for a channel width over 6 cm. The influence of those parameters on Rayleigh and Nusselt numbers is also investigated. Temperature and air velocity profiles on several channel cross-sections are plotted and discussed. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.