Even when you are inside, heat can get trapped in your roof and seep into your home. The hotter it is inside the room, the more energy your air conditioning system has to spend to cool your room. This can be a problem, especially for those without functioning air conditioning systems.
Luckily, there are cheap and low-tech ways to solve this problem. To lessen energy costs, you can refer to the following for some tips to cool your roof and your room.
Paint Your Roof in a Lighter Color
Light colors reflect heat while darker colors tend to absorb it. It’s been found that when your paint your roof with a lighter color, a lot of money is saved in lost energy. If white is not your preferred hue, there are also paints on the market in more traditional colors that still effectively reflect heat.
Use a Metal Roof
Metal roofs reflect heat and they are ideal if your roof is steep-sloped. Flat roofs tend to absorb more sunlight so they should simply be painted with a light reflective coating.
Add Shingles or Tiles to Your Roof
While shingles are not popular for their cooling properties, there are new materials such as cool asphalt shingles that are designed to reflect heat. Tiles, depending on their color and on the clay they contain, are also known to have heat-reflecting properties.
Add Solar Panels to Your Roof
Thin solar panels can go a long way in cooling your roof, since the absorbed energy simply goes back to the power grid. Solar panels are a bit expensive, but they are definitely worth the investment. Not only are they effective in keeping your home cool during the summer, but they will save you on energy costs in the long run.
Install a Rooftop Garden
A rooftop garden is a layer of vegetation installed on top of the roof. This is an extremely effective way to cool your room because plants are able to shield the area below from sunlight. Through evaporation, plants also remove moisture from the soil and emit it to the air, cooling it naturally. You will notice that the area right above the vegetation is significantly cooler than the surrounding air.
Cooling your roof is a wise strategy in keeping you and your family comfortable. Not only that, it also saves you a lot of money from so much air conditioning energy spent. Most importantly, cooling your roof is a simple way of helping our environment by conserving energy.
Written by True Son Exteriors, the best contractors for roofing Columbia, MO has to offer.