What is the first thing that the sun touches in your home?
You will probably agree with us that it will be the roof. When roofs are made of certain materials or are darkly colored, they tend to attract and absorb more heat.
For example: dark colored asphalt shingle roofs attract more heat than white roofs or lightly colored roofs. Darker colors cause the roof and therefore the entire home to become hotter, especially in the summer months. As a result, this causes the temperature inside your home to rise and of course, your Air Conditioning system has to work harder to keep the home at a comfortable temperature. Causing the utility bills to become very costly.
To prevent these issues, homeowners can install energy efficient roof. These roofs are made from different materials. We always recommend, a “Metal Roof” because a metal roof coating reflect a high percentage of solar energy back into the atmosphere, ultimately reducing heat build-up in your house. It is considered that a metal roof can reduce your peak cooling demand by 10-15% (on average).
Solar reflectance is the ability of a material to reflect solar energy from its surface back into the atmosphere. Solar reflectance is measured in decimals on a scale from 0 to 1, where 0 would be considered the truest black and 1 would be considered the truest white.
Emissivity is a measure of how efficiently and quickly a surface releases/emits absorbed heat and returns to its normal temperature. Emissivity is determined on a decimal scale from 0 to 1, where a 1 represents the most efficiently emissive material possible. In essence, the higher the number, the better it will be at cooling itself.
Asphalt shingles absorb more heat, and that heat doesn’t stop at the shingles. It absorbs into your home’s structure, contributing to an indoor increase in temperature of up to 20 to 25 degrees, according to studies.
Metal roofing, however, reflects away much of the sun’s hot rays, leading to an energy savings that can reach 50 percent. That’s easy to prove by measuring the temperature of an asphalt roof verses a high-quality metal roof. The metal roof can be as much as 100 degrees cooler in the same conditions, according to research.
There’s another factor: Shingles weaken with sun exposure, curling and cracking, decreasing their effectiveness against sun, rain wind and other environmental forces and leading to early replacement. Metal doesn’t take in the heat as much, so it doesn’t degrade because of it. It can last the entire life of a home with little maintenance, reflecting away heat all that time.
Since metal roofing is fireproof, doesn’t need much maintenance and can reduce your reliance on air conditioning, it’s an intelligent choice for a hot climate whether the air is dry or humid most of the time.
As far as energy cost savings go, the best way to illustrate how a cool metal roof can benefit the property owner is explaining how the solar reflectance level can reduce energy costs.
According to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory:
· For every 1% increment in roof reflectance, the surface temperature of the metal roof decreases 1 degree Fahrenheit.
· For every 10% increase in roof reflectance, heating / cooling costs drop 2 cents per square foot per year.
We may conclude that even when the metal selected for your roof is a dark color you will still have the benefits of a reduce energy cost. Keep in mind that the lighter the color, the greater the benefits.
At the end of the day and in the long run, you are saving money with a metal roof, you will recover your investment and you will enjoy the comfort of your home with peace of mind.
START SAVING TODAY !!!
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