Roof Shingle Color Energy Savings

The color shingles your clients choose can have significant effect on the temperature of the upper levels of the building.

Roof shingle color energy savings.

Adequate ventilation and the quality of your home s insulation are what really determine its energy efficiency. Darker colors absorb heat. One way to estimate how much energy you would save by installing a cool roof is by using the cool roof calculator. Emissivity and how it relates to energy savings and cool roofs.

You probably know from elementary science that different colors respond differently to light and heat energy. The industry has long held the assumption that white roofing because of how it reacts with surrounding air temperatures think about the idea that the color white reflects color rays while black. Shingle colors can have a significant impact on a roof s energy efficiency. The roof covers a huge portion of the exterior of your house and receives most of the direct sun rays.

Lighter colors reflect heat and may help keep your home cooler although you have to take what some say about energy savings with a grain of salt. What kind of savings can you expect from cool roof shingles. Attic temperatures can vary as much as 20 to 40 degrees f which in turn can reduce energy consumption by 20. Tests at fsec also indicate that simply switching from dark to white asphalt shingles in a cooling climate can reduce peak cooling loads by 17 and seasonal loads by 4.

Cool roofs can save money several ways including energy savings rebates and incentives hvac equipment downsizing and extended roof lifetime. Energy star certified roof products. This is known as the albedo effect and many studies have documented significant energy savings from simply lightening the color of a roof. The color of the shingles you choose for your build can have a significant impact on the building s energy efficiency.

As such your roof plays the biggest role in determining how much of the sun s heating gets into your home. Cool roofs are lighter in color than traditional black asphalt or dark wood shingles and save energy by reflecting light and heat away rather than absorbing them. Additional cool roof costs include specialized materials and labor. The greatest savings resulted from using white metal roofing see table 2 18 shown at left.

Let the roofing store show you how shingle colors for residential roof installation can influence energy efficiency. Please remember the energy savings that can be achieved with reflective roofing is highly dependent on facility design insulation used climatic conditions building location and building envelope efficiency.