Southern New Mexico’s summer heat presents homeowners with unique challenges when dealing with cooling their homes, keeping energy costs down and extending roof life. Installing both the proper attic space ventilation and a solar reflective roof coating can provide many benefits to reduce attic temperatures, reduce cooling costs, and extend the life of the roof.
All too often, attic space ventilation is overlooked and often ignored as a place for potential energy savings. Air trapped in the attic can easily reach 150˚, or more, during Southern New Mexico’s peak summer months. Uncirculated hot air in the attic space radiates heat into the home’s interior; this causes the heating and cooling systems to work harder and translates into higher energy costs year round. A recent survey found that close to 90% of all existing homes in the U.S. were not equipped with proper attic space ventilation. The older the home the more likely that home was not equipped with the proper attic space ventilation. Aside from increasing cooling costs; an improperly vented attic space can lead to very costly and damaging effects. Excessive heat buildup can cause a warping or buckling of the roof sheathing, cause premature failure of roof shingles (or the asphalt roofing materials of a flat roof) and decrease the service life of the roof. Proper attic space ventilation can help to reduce moisture. Trapped moisture can cause wood rot, paint blisters, roofing bubbles, reduction of insulation R-value, and mold colonization. Attic space ventilation can be accomplished by gravity ventilators, wind assisted ventilators and/or power ventilators. Regardless of the method used to vent, the purpose is to provide uniform ventilation of the attic for temperature and moisture control. For the comparatively small investment to ventilate the attic space properly, homeowners can save on costly repairs and reduce cooling costs.
Reflective roof coatings act like mirrors, reflecting the sun's radiant energy back into space. When first applied, solar reflective roof coatings can provide a solar reflectance of up to 80%, which means that only 20% of the sun's energy is being absorbed as heat. Conventional built up asphalt roofing typically reflect only about 25% of sunlight. This is because they are typically covered with a gray aggregate (mineral) with a rough texture and a black substrate which allows considerable heat absorption. The solar reflectivity of the white elastomeric roof coatings can reduce the surface temperatures 55 – 75 F when applied over flat built up asphalt roof surfaces. The roof surface temperature reduction associated with white elastomeric roof coatings equate to lower cooling costs to homeowners and promote the life of the roof. Pairing energy savings with durability make elastomeric solar reflective roofing systems an environmentally friendly and sustainable roofing solution.
From reducing cooling costs to extending the life of the roof, the proper attic space ventilation combined with a solar reflective roof coating provides homeowners with a practical solution when dealing with Southern New Mexico’s hot summers.
Contact Quinones Design/Build for a free Attic Space Ventilation and Solar Reflective Roofing System consultation.
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