Keep Your Cool By Coating Your Roof
While coating your body in sunscreen to protect yourself from UV rays seems logical, coating your roof in reflective materials to protect it from the same sunlight might seem like a strange concept, which is why we’re here to show you how roof coating can keep you and your Florida home nice and cool during summer.
What is Roof Coating?
A cool roof is a type of roof that reflects the sun’s rays to a greater extent than normal roofing materials, which in turn helps to decrease the temperature within your home. Traditionally, cool roofs are coated in lighter shades to deflect ultraviolet light better than dark colors. Just like a black car will get hotter in summer than a white one, so will a house with a black roof.
What Does Coating Your Roof Do?
More than 90% of the roofs in the United States are made of darker colored material, which means that 9/10 households are 50°F hotter than they should be, according to the Department of Energy. In the hot Florida sun, a standard dark roof can reach temperatures of 150°F or more, while a cool roof need not get hotter than 100°F. But other than cooling down your house, what are the benefits of a cool roof?
Reduced energy bills:
- buildings with cool roofs use less energy to power air conditioners, which in turn reduces electricity bills and saves you money.
Longer roof life:
- decreasing the temperature of your roof may increase its lifespan by decelerating the deterioration of roofing materials.
Lower peak electricity demand:
- by using less electricity to power your AC you will put less strain on the power grid at peak hours which helps prevent power cuts.
Help the environment:
- by lowering your energy use, you decrease the amount of associated greenhouse gases produced during the electricity production process while also decreasing air pollution caused by the heat island effect.
How Do You Coat Your Roof for the Florida Climate?
Because Florida is typically a very warm state, installing a cool roof can be very beneficial. However, tearing down your existing roof in order to replace it with solar reflective shingles or some other specially designed reflective material is not a viable option for many homeowners. Luckily it is still possible to turn your older, normal roof into a cool roof by coating it in a type of heat reflective coating. These coatings are usually white or off-white (some manufacturers offer limited colors such as tan or gray) that reflect sunlight and heat energy, thus lowering the temperature of your roof. Coatings are often also very thick which is to protect the roofs they are applied to from ultra-violet light and chemical damage.
Although coating your roof in cool roof paint may seem like an easy paint job, it is important to hire a contractor to apply the paint for you to ensure that your entire roof is properly and evenly covered in the reflective substance. If you have been thinking about replacing your roof, consider doing so with pre-treated cool roof materials instead. The professionals at AABCO Roofing, Inc. can provide you with the information needed for roof coating.
