Making Roofs White

Energy secretary steven chu has pressed americans to install cool roofs on their homes and business even committing his own department to making all its new roofs white.

Making roofs white.

But there are problems with this approach mainly finding a paint that will adhere to the asphalt shingles and last for more than a few years. Known simply as cool roofing this process is designed to reduce the solar radiation. Rainwater that falls on a white roof however absorbs no heat. There are many small scale initiatives in cities to make roof surfaces more reflective.

But is the hype about cool roofs legitimate. But white roofs by reducing the amount of solar heating at the surface also decrease the temperature difference between the surface and the air about a half mile to a mile up from the surface. In 2017 more than 3 000 city rooftops were painted using both white lime and a special reflective coating. New york for instance introduced rules on white roofs into its building codes as long ago as 2012.

Most of us know better than to wear black on a hot day but when it comes to the roofs on our. If however you have a slanted roof or have never worked on a rooftop before you may want to consider contracting the help of a professional painter. Painting roofs white has been like changing lightbulbs one of the well cited easy ways out of climate change. White roofs aka cool roofs are a hot topic these days as a means to help stem global warming.

Painting your asphalt shingle roof white can indeed make your roof surface 45 80 f cooler under the hot texas sun and this should easily cut your cooling bills by 10 15. Volunteers have taken white paint to nearly 7 million square feet of tar roofs in the city though that is still only about 1 percent of the potential roof area. So in other words installing a roof that is white or reflective helps save energy and money. Painting your roof white can be as easy as painting any surface.

First find a good paint. By reflecting more light and heat back to the atmosphere a white roof should act like.