People who reside in warm tropical climates typically wear white or light-colored clothing to keep themselves cool. Everyone knows that bright colors reflect sunlight and heat; whereas the dark colors absorb light and heat. Buildings are like people. If you use a dark-colored roof, such as black, your building will definitely be hotter as compared to a light-colored roof making Cool Roof Coating a better choice.
Benefits of Cool Roof coating
Cool roof coating is primarily bright white in color, even though non-white colors are now becoming more available for roof applications. The Cool Roof coating must have high emissivity, letting them emit infrared energy. Unluckily, metallic and bare metal coatings tend to have a low emissivity and aren’t considered cool materials.
Cool roof coatings can reduce roof surface temperature by 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
They reduce the heat transmitted into the building. It helps to reduce costs of energy as well (by keeping ducts and attics cooler), cuts maintenance costs, improves occupant comfort, increases the roof’s life cycle, and reduce urban heat along with the associated smog.
Getting your cool roof coating
Search for a substance with high solar reflectance (occasionally called albedo). The best coatings are usually white and smooth. There are white roof coatings which can be applied to the asphalt shingles and other roofing substrates. When first applied, they can provide solar reflectance of 80%, which implies that only about 20% of the energy of the sun is being absorbed.
Solar reflectance is not the only component to look for in roofing materials. It should have high infrared emittance as well to help the roof deflect heat by re-radiation. A majority of materials do this except the aluminum roof coatings. Aluminum stays warmer at night, but white roof coating radiates more of the stored heat back up to the sky. Hence, aluminum won’t perform as well as a white coating with similar solar reflectance.
Your choices depend on the kind of roof you already have and how broad your reroofing project is. Where you have a flat rood or low-sloping roof, you can purchase solar-reflective white roofing. If you’ve got a sloped roof, you’d probably want shingles, as they’re more artistically pleasing.
Light-colored roofs have their own added advantage over the dark ones: they tend to last a lot longer. The constant cooling and heating of a roof makes it expand and then contract, causing normal wear and tear. Cooler roofs are usually more durable.
Irrespective of reflectance, material affects how well roof sheds heat. For example, curved tiles with wood allow air to circulate properly. This helps keep them cool.
If you’re not replacing your roof deck, you can install a radiant barrier. Do so by fastening it to the base of the existing sheathing.
For more information, contact My Florida roofing contractor.
