Up on the Roof

I wish you a lifetime pass on replacing the roof shingles on your house, but I"m a poor faerie godfather. Sooner or later it comes to all of us who own our homes. I did mine two years ago, and it wasn't too bad.

When selecting a roofer, ask sharp pointy questions: what written warranty will accompany the shingles to be installed, what repairs to roof sheathing do you expect to do, what is the roofer's personal guarantee if he/she wants to overlay new shingles over old, what is the wind rating of the new roof, and what color will complement the house and keep my attic cool all summer?

It is of this last question we will treat here. You know how hard it is to get a roofer to install light color shingles? You know how many major shingle manufacturers offer white or light colors? It's part of the conservative ballast that holds the building industry down in trendy times when aluminum wire, plastic doors and paperboard siding threaten to run away with us all. It's good to be slow about questionable trends, but it can be maddening when building science is ignored in favor of "the way we've done it all these years and what's wrong with it anyway?"
Light colored asphalt shingles save energy. They aren't perfect, but they make a difference. The temperature of your attic on a sunny day can reach 150 degrees F. or more. Wood starts to outgas and dessicate at high temperatures, and plywood is also susceptible to damage from repeated overheating. Still, perception and preference keep light colors out of fashion for roofing materials.

The discussion about roof materials as energy reflectors/absorbers is getting lively, but the shingle industry is responding to market forces that still prefer darker roofs, even in hotter southern climates. Coatings are available, but they're not cheap and, like paint, they need to be renewed often. The truth is that shingle manufacturers haven't really tried yet to give us highly reflective coatings on our roofing materials, mostly because we haven't insisted. They listen, we consistently prefer darker shingle colors, they shrug and say to the nutty green guys, " See? We give 'em what they want!"

But, as Seal in the link will sing to you, a change is gonna come. Some analysts estimate that a highly reflective roof coating saves more energy than a similar square footage of solar panels. That sounds extreme, but I can testify that the section of white (painted steel) roofing on my addition keeps the attic under that roof much cooler than the medium brown shingles over the main house. Yes, I lost that battle. The roof can be seen from the street,and the point was made rather forcefully to me by someone with overwhelming influence in my affairs that the house needs to look "right" from the street. Sigh...... ok. But perceptions do change, and we'll be using highly reflective coatings on our roofs someday, as soon as they become fashionable. Until then, sad to say, white roofs just aren't cool.