White roofs

There is a push to cool the earth, save energy and keep your home cooler at less cost to have white roofs. Especially in the cities to reduce heat islands. What about northern states where we heat more than air condition. Should we go to white roofs or black roofs or middle colors?

Reply to
LSMFT
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Here in the north central, seldom see a white roof. Large southern cities, though, evidently find white a benefit. Choosing colors for two roof replacements last year we found no truly white conventional shingles on the market. I'm guessing that the colored topping weathers off the light colored ones in a few years leaving the darker substrate behind anyway. So metal or other material would be the most practical long lasting material. Something to consider when the price comes down a bit. Hard to make a choice when so many factors are involved. Best left to the architect, probably.

Joe

Reply to
Joe

The only thing a white roof will cool is your house in the winter. This "man made climate change" thing is just a huge money grabbing scam.

Reply to
serebel

You obviously are a Republican....not a doubt in my mind.

Don

Reply to
IGot2P

The only thing a white roof will cool is your house in the winter. This "man made climate change" thing is just a huge money grabbing scam.

reply: I agree with you. In the thousands of years roofs have been around, seems like common knowledge would have evolved saying that this color is better than that one. Instead, we get these new government revelations from people who are educated beyond their capacities as to what they "think" is the best.

I remember in the sixties, in Las Vegas, they did a slight pitch roof, put gravel on it, then put rocks the size of softballs and white tar or paint. Those gradually wore out and were replaced, and now are seen no more.

If a house is set up where a considerable heat load can be conducted to the house from the roof, it is plain built wrong. There is a layer of air there, and yes, attic ventilation fans will keep down the attic temperature, but the sun load on the roof will be there no matter what, unless we all wrap them in tinfoil, which may be an alternative, since we know tin foil (excuse me, aluminum foil) hats are very valuable in fending off the evil controlling rays of evil beings.

But then, I'm not sure. How about a couple of million for me to do a study? Send the money in small unmarked bills, and I'll get back to you. Just like they do it in Washington. The money will be in the freezer wrapped in tin (aluminum) foil.

Steve, a libertarian

visit my blog at

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Reply to
Steve B

In Indianapolis for many years, there were two big department stores downtown. Blocks and Ayres. The Blocks lived just doown the street from us, on the nice part of the street, the really nice part, but we drove by their enormous house to get home. Later, the son built a big house next door, with dark shingles. Four months later, the shingles were replaced with white or almost white. This was probably 1961.

My townhouse had dark brown shingles and when my next door neighbor and I needed a new roof, I talked him into light brown. White wouldn't have looked good. He uses his AC a lot and I rarely use mine, and I think maybe I helped him more than me, becaues with the cooler attic he saves money on his AC and I don't use mine enough to save more than a bit of money. For me, in the summer, I'm pretty sure the house is not as hot as it was. (Maybe I need more insulation on part of the attic floor but most has plenty.)

But in the mid fall and early spring, I turned off the roof fan so the attic got as hot as possible and I used the heat of the attic to warm the house. That doesn't seem to work anymore. It was only good for

2 to 4 degrees but it was also the difference between closing the windows and turning on the heat, versus leaving them open and heating a little bit the house from attic.

All these effects would be a little greater with white. I was afraid, warned even, that white would look dirty eventually, although I don't know why he claimed that. I meant to look at other white roofs to see if any looked dirty, but I forgot that until just now, and I never did it.

I think I'd still get light colored shingles rather than dark, no matter what my habits aare.

Reply to
mm

Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure that in the summer, the roof fan turns on a little later and off a little earlier, maybe 30 to 45 minutes at each end. I did pay attention, because I was curious, but I didn't keep written records with the old roof, and maybe I'm wrong.

Reply to
mm

Let's think about white roofs and summers:

Whatever the color of the roof, it's going to absorb SOME heat. Eventually it will absorb as much as it can. The trick is to have a system that can shed as much heat as is absorbed. A white roof will merely absorb heat at a slower rate than, say, a black roof. That means that the rest of the system (fans, soffit vents, etc.) need not be as robust as if the rest of the ventilation system had to deal with the heat transfer of a black roof.

Meanwhile, a white roof will almost immediately look like hammered goose droppings due to staining and dirt.

For a black roof - winter combination, the reverse heat transfer process is in play. A black roof will shed heat from the house at a slower rate than a white roof because the black roof is absorbing heat from the sun faster than its white counterpart.

So, then, to answer your question: Roof color will make SOME difference in energy costs but that differerence depends more on the quality of the rest of the system (ventilation, insulation, etc.), than the color of the roof. Specifically, with sufficient ventilation, an attic in summer won't get much hotter than the outside air, irrespective of the roof color. With pitiful, or no, ventilation, the attic temperature may be a hundred degrees higher than the air outside!

Reply to
HeyBub

Besides the color of a roof, here are a couple more thoughts. In the desert SW, we have a lot of homes with barrel tile roofs. Essentially, the house has a waterproof roofing material over the roof sheathing, and this is then covered with the barrel tile (made of concrete nowadays) to protect the membrane from UV. A side effect of this is that the barrel tile, with its "S"-shaped design creates shade for the roofing material below, together with terrific convection air flow up under the tile. This reduces attic temperatures.

In our own home, besides the barrel tile roof, we also have flat solar panels to heat our pool. Again, they shade the barrel tile, which in turn shades the roofing membrane. However, there's a hidden value in that, say, the pool's water is 85f going into the panels and 88f departing, you essentially have a cold blanket (relative to the air temperature and sun load here in the desert, usually) on your roof. There is air circulation under this "cold" blanket, due to the upper surface of the barrel tile, as well as below.

Nonny

Reply to
Nonny

True, the white roof won't cool anything, but it will reflect more heat than a dark roof, thereby reducing the heat gain to the roof material and the spaces below.

Reply to
willshak

We need a federal panel to study the matter, with an eye toward diversity. What would minorities and women think if they drove into a part of town that had all white roofs. Think of the children, man!

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

The intelligence shows. Republicans, the party of traditional values. Lower taxes, morality, waterboarding, and the Patriot Act.

Hmm. Did that help or hurt my case?

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

Just present your DNC card at the welfare office. They will take care of you.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

I guess the logic escapes you.

Jim

Reply to
JimT

I've seen the study already. My mom insisted on almost white for the new roof, my father bitched and complained that is looks ugly and won't stay any cooler. Sometime later my father was on a porch roof with dark ... what's it called? Rolled roofing? Like a giant shingle on a roll. Anyway he was on the dark part and was getting burnt, he moved the the white shingles and said to me "Don't tell Mom but she sure was right about the white beeing cooler!

OK, a small study but it sure made Dad change his mind.

Reply to
Tony

Hunh? I wrote none of which you snipped and posted.

Steve

visit my blog at

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watch for the book

Reply to
Steve B

It looked like you wrote "The only thing a white roof will cool is your house in the winter." Which made little since to me. If it cools in the winter why wouldn't it cool in the summer?

If that wasn't you ignore it. With Google Groups some of the quotes get messed up.

Jim

Reply to
JimT

That one sure did.

Steve

Reply to
Steve B

When people post from GG the quotes get fouled up. Another reason to hate GG for me. The following is exactly how the post appeared to me. Some have been using ===== to divide the posts. There is a add on program that fixes ths w/OE but I don't like it either.

The only thing a white roof will cool is your house in the winter. This "man made climate change" thing is just a huge money grabbing scam.

reply: I agree with you. In the thousands of years roofs have been around, seems like common knowledge would have evolved saying that this color is better than that one. Instead, we get these new government revelations from people who are educated beyond their capacities as to what they "think" is the best.

I remember in the sixties, in Las Vegas, they did a slight pitch roof, put gravel on it, then put rocks the size of softballs and white tar or paint. Those gradually wore out and were replaced, and now are seen no more.

If a house is set up where a considerable heat load can be conducted to the house from the roof, it is plain built wrong. There is a layer of air there, and yes, attic ventilation fans will keep down the attic temperature, but the sun load on the roof will be there no matter what, unless we all wrap them in tinfoil, which may be an alternative, since we know tin foil (excuse me, aluminum foil) hats are very valuable in fending off the evil controlling rays of evil beings.

But then, I'm not sure. How about a couple of million for me to do a study? Send the money in small unmarked bills, and I'll get back to you. Just like they do it in Washington. The money will be in the freezer wrapped in tin (aluminum) foil.

Steve, a libertarian

visit my blog at

formatting link

Reply to
JimT

Works for me.

You have some case.

Reply to
krw

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