How to Protect Your Cat from a Hot Tin Roof
One of the most prolific and well adopted sustainable technologies are cool roof options, at least in commercial buildings. There was a time when almost all flat roofs were black asphalt, but most buildings built in the last 10 years are white membranes to reflect the sun’s heat year-round. These commercial buildings have been built with the realization that having a 110 degree surface year-round leads to a lot of heat infiltration, even in the winter when you might think it would be a good idea, it’s far too much and in the summer, it kills the conditioning bills. These technologies are now starting to find their way more and more into residential products and are often available from roofing companies such as markham roofing services, and I would recommend them more and more for most buildings, especially the more your cooling load dominates your heating bills.
The most simple, and least residential, are the white roof membranes. There are many types, thicknesses, materials, and installation techniques, but in flat roofs especially, without an attic space to ventilate to keep the heat out of the space below, reflecting energy back out of the building is very helpful way to lower your cooling bills. These aren’t common on residential projects, but if you were to build a house with a flat roof, avail yourself of the lighter membranes. These membranes often will hold up better than their darker brethren as well due to the fact that since they absorb less heat, they expand and contract less with changes in temperature which means they’re less likely to crack and create leaks, which gives you an added maintenance benefit.
More commonly in residential construction are metal roofs. These have started to incorporate reflective paints in a variety of colors. When selecting a final color (which doesn’t have to be white, but usually is a lighter color) look for certified cool roof finishes. Most manufacturers have finishes that meet certain criteria that certify that they reflect a given percentage of the sun’s energy away from the building keeping the attic cool. These finishes are even standard options now in many manufacturer’s lines.
Metal roofs are expensive to purchase and install, and the most common material for roofing houses are asphalt shingles. Not everyone is going to have the right skills to be able to fix their own roof. This is why companies like roof repair round rock exist. Leaving a job like this to professionals will ensure the roof is looking as good as new. Unfortunately, roofing issues can be quite common and need to be addressed immediately to ensure that it doesn’t deteriorate anymore and the expense of the job doesn’t increase. Asphalt roofs can be susceptible to leaks, but fortunately, you’ll find it easy to get in contact with roofing companies that fix leaky asphalt roofs with websites like MyRoofingPal. There are cool roof shingles available, but they’re not usually in stock at local suppliers, and have installed them on my own house, I was not thrilled with their performance to date. They’re better than nothing, and if you’re committed to doing something, you can go that route. Guttering is another issue that we had to deal with, however, we found that getting shingles installed could help protect our roof from water damage. We decided to get in touch with a service similar to this Mastershield Gutter Company which was able to give us some options when it came to installation. It was a great help and they gave us some insight into what our options were. A better option, however, might be to install a reflective underlayment beneath the shingles. There are reflective infiltration barriers and underlayments for walls and roofs that act as an emergency blanket for your house that reflects radiated heat in and out of the house. I’ve been dying to try one of these systems on a house to see what the difference is, but as yet, these are still relatively new, rare, and somewhat unproven materials, so make sure you, or your architect, does the proper research to determine if they are or are not worth the trouble and expense.
Cool roofs are getting more common in design and can save you a ton of money on your cooling bills, especially if you have a house with a limited or non-existent attic. Even with these technologies, the good design suggests installing exhaust fans and other methods of ventilating built-up heat in your attic to help keep your home cool in the summer, comfortable in the spring and fall, and evenly heated in the winter.
