UPDATE: have a look at Clinton’s house below. Yep, that’s the big plan. Paint your roofs white. From the Atlantic:
I have no problem with saving energy, especially in the summer when power drain is excessive due to A/C load. California now requires most flat-roofed buildings to be white. As a testament to the potential cash savings, Walmart has installed white roofs on 75% of its stores in the United States. Roofs comprise over 20% of urban surface, so while painting them all white in a city, there’s still a lot of asphalt.
But paint roofs white has a downside as well as an upside. It depends on where you live. If you live in a mostly warm climate, say Miami or Phoenix, you’ll realize energy savings. But if you live in Minot,ND or International Falls, MN your white roof will not absorb as much sunlight in winter, thus requiring more energy for heating.
The point is, painting roofs white natiowide, willy nilly, without regard to the local climate, average temperatures, the number of days of sunshine etc. won’t be a full solution.
An idea like Cool Angle, might work, but is far more involved than a paint job.
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UPDATE: Reader John provides this image link to the former president’s home. Goose, gander, and all that. We look forward to seeing Bill lead the way.
Source: http://www.zillow.com/howto/FamousPresidentsHomes.htm
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Why would anyone want a colder world?
DirkH says:
I work in Germany and … i’m wasting my life.
Warum bleibst du dort? Take the 3 last letters of my screenname as hint.
I need to see the chart of energy difference by latitude and longitude, compensated for cloud cover. (better yet, monthly charts of the same). I doubt it’s as economical as claimed, or smart people would already be doing it in droves.
Bystander says:
July 19, 2011 at 9:19 am
@ur momisugly James Sexton “BTW, the painter wouldn’t pay any taxes here in the U.S. except the state and local sales taxes. We’re not going to pay them enough for them to pay fed income taxes. ”
Where is that documented? How do you support that assertion? Seems like a political not factual rant.
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Goodness, ok, let’s break it down. The question would be how much would you pay,(or the fed govt pay) for someone to whitewash your roof. Unless you put this person at about $35,000 – $40,000/yr, they won’t typically pay federal taxes. I seriously doubt we’ll pay them that much on a “make work” project. History tells us we won’t, especially in the context Bill Clinton put it in, ” a program to hire and train young people.” But, even if the income was taxable, it would still be a net negative in total revenue for the fed govt unless the govt finds some other poor sap to foot the bill. (unfunded mandate)
Bystander, that wasn’t a political comment, it was simply an observation. $40,000/yr ~ $20/hr. Obviously, this is depends on the filing status of the wage earner, (married, dependents, etc.) Throw in the EIC (lol, the earned income tax credit) and the wage earner will collect more in taxes than payed.
Then we can paint the roofs BLACK for the Winter months, to absorb heat and save energy.
Paint/re-paint/paint; a marvelous self-perpetuating Jobs program. The economy will boom twice a year.
Thanks Uncle Bill!
And then in a couple of years when it is clear that the planet is actually cooling, everybody can paint their roofs black. It’s not just a jump-start solution to jobs. It’s a long-term solution!
Someone made this comment above: “If it were such a good idea, and actually saved money, people would already be doing it.”
Actually, I am doing it. We tried to get our roofer to paint our roof white about 15 years ago, but he only used red paint. Then about 5 years ago, we asked him again. This time he had it, and we went for it.
Perhaps there just needed to be some demand for white paint, before roofers started using it?
As usual, the problem here is that roof painting will be a temporary job at best, for unskilled workers, with minimal actual production resulting from it. The only way to create real, permanent job growth is to create an environment that encourages business to expand and hire new workers to do productive jobs, to encourage building of physical capital etc. Programs that involve pointless jobs like shoveling dirt in and out of holes or indeed painting roofs are not the key to long term economic growth and higher employment/lower unemployment. People painting roofs could be doing much more productive work.
You forgot your /sarc tags – or your white coat with the extra long sleeves. But then it is America where even crazies are allowed to speak their mind (or lack thereof).
BINGO! (experienced some of this this effect in Texas this year as a matter of fact owing to a combination of conditions: an accumulation of snow preceded by ice all laid down via precipitation then followed by unseasonable cold – for us!)
I would urge ANYONE considering painting their roof to consider ALL the consequences, especially the troublesome unintended consequences that might appear with time (sometimes referred to as ‘effects experienced over time’) ..
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“I think it’s a great idea from the greatest U.S. President of my lifetime!”
well since you like that one so much, here’s another one of his for you – Bill has invited you to see him personally!
First, you get under the desk.
With all those hallways, closets, and hideaway rooms, you would think Hillary would have opted for an A-frame with a single open alcove bedroom. With maybe a central tether so she could chain him up when she went out.
Duncan says:
July 19, 2011 at 8:56 am
A logical extension is that the U.S. Government should consider ways to encourage it, but that isn’t what the big dawg said.
That is just typical Liberal “logic”. People like saving money, a concept apparently unknown to Big Government type Liberals, who prefer to just spend it. No, of course Clinton didn’t say anything about a government program, nor did he have to. The “logical extension” you mention is all that’s needed. BTW, I voted for Clinton twice, and I’m not sorry I did. Whatever one thinks of him as a President is immaterial, though. The idea is an abomination, due to your “logical extension”.
Fred from Canuckistan says:
July 19, 2011 at 8:04 am
It’s Bill Clinton folks . . . . he also thought getting an intern to lip-pock his dicky wasn’t “sex”.
Maybe he should paint that white. Maybe white arsenic paint.
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This discussion is more boring than painting the town red!
If you have the capacity, run the figures to determine the area of all the pavement and rooftops on the planet. I did when Chu first brough this up years ago. It is insignificant when placed alongside the entire surface area of the Earth. For starters, oceans cover two thirds of the surface and there are no pavement or rooftops found there.
The vastness of our planet seems to escape the alarmists. But what do you expect from those that want to limit everything? Apparently these limits include their own capacity to learn.
In northern climes, there is not a lot of sun in the winter. Here in Iowa, we only get about 9 hours of sunshine. Even if the house weren’t covered in snow for much of the year, we wouldn’t get much heat from the sun. The sun is also getting pretty low in the sky, so the color of the sides of the house start to make more of difference than the roof color.
There are many advantages to white roofs. Modern membrane roofs are almost all white now. They stay much cooler in summer, which in northern factories that are not conditioned really makes a big difference. They also last longer since they stay cooler. In Winter in northern areas the roof is often snow covered, so color of roof does not matter for much of the coldest season.
It is no longer necessary to paint roofs white to achieve high reflectivity. BASF and I assume other companies make coatings for metal roofs that are highly reflective in colors other than white.
http://www.basf-coatings.de/en_UK/news/2008-02-11_a.xml It’s amazing stuff, as I recall developed for the military or NASA.
i read some of tony the electricians stuff and actually understood what he said.
in the states we call it a “technical refreshment”. its a bigger version of the light bulb salesmans scam.
a light bulb salesman comes to the owners/users of a very large industrial building and pitches the following scam. “If you replace all of your area lights with my companies rootin tootin super bulbs you will get the same amount of lumens per square foot as with the old bulbs that you have currently. and whats more they will use 10% less electricity and because of that they will pay for themselves in ten years……. ”
what he dosn’t say is that they take 240 volts vs the 120 volts that the old system uses which means a godawful amount to rewire the whole under roof to install them and that the light they give is a putrid greenish purple that makes every one look really weird.
so ok we put the new system in and here he comes in 5 years, working for a different outfit and schlepping another bulb that would pay for itself in 7 years……….
sooner or later you have to scream “enough, we’re going to go with what we have and run it till it drops.”
anyone that wants to see examples of this look for the purple green or yellow orange street lights in a town near you.
C
My other Gaia-friendly plan also doesn’t require painters. See, I have these flocks of trained formation-flying seagulls …
8-o
Painting the roof of a ten story building white does not save much of anything for the building inhabitants, especially if the floor just below the roof is filled with air handling and elevator machinery, plumbing, etc. as these spaces are not normally heated or cooled to the same extent as the rest of the building, and already buffer the living spaces below them.
Painting the shingled roof of your 1 story ranch-style home in the northeast may not save you much if you have already taken advantage of the incentives to super-insulate your attic and install attic fans. Painting your shingles may void your 20-year roof guarantee.
Does any paint manufacturer make a paint intended for use on the normal shingled roof used on a huge percentage of American homes? How does painting your roof white affect snow melt-off during the winter and spring — will it result in ice dams? Will it cause roofs to retain too much heavy snow or ice, which usually melts off as soon as one or two spots of dark roofing appear?
What are the building codes regarding painted shingle roofs? Need the paint be fireproof? (Think the fire-prone hills of Southern California).
Have any/all these questions been answered, before people run out and paint their roofs with inappropriate paints and make a mess of it?
power drain in summer is hardly excessive … no more so than it is in winter … it is what it is becasue you choose not to sweat or freeze … it is not excessive, it is above average and each persons choice …
given the R factors in modern insulation if you have a reasonably ventilated attic having a non-white roof really doesn’t cause much house heating …
It works for a Walmart sized building because
1) there is little insulation between the roof and the interior air space
2) generally there is no attic type air space between the roof and the interior and
3) most of their roofs started out with BLACK tar … I suspect that Walmart would see almost as much savings if they had painted their roofs tan instead of white …
Re Roger Knights on July 19, 2011 at 4:21 am :
Obviously we’ve been building our houses wrong. The actual house should have a flat roof, sealed, insulated underneath, with an exterior-grade roof access hatch. On top of that is built a normal-looking “false roof” that can be ventilated quite breezily in the warm months. In cold times the ventilation is closed off to allow the sunlight-derived heat to build up, to reduce heat loss from the actual house and for melting snow and ice off the false roof. The area can be used for storage as possible.
For roofing materials for the false roof, use tin, applied over rafters. It’d be ideal for solar power, if desired. The proven Uni-Solar flexible photovoltaic laminates are designed to be unrolled onto tin roofs, peel and stick. And I’m certain enterprising people can fit coils to the underside of the tin for solar water heating purposes, perhaps even make them “reversible” for quick removal of snow and ice.
Wow, modern technology and understanding is showing us we’ve been doing something all wrong for thousands of years. How often does that happen?
The problem with this is that every good idea is simply used as the starting point for another government program. First, it’s a good idea, then it graduates into a full blown crisis, then its something every good citizen should do (like recycling), then it becomes a government mandate, then the EPA enforces it with fines and threats of imprisonment. Then it’s ignored (at least in New York City, where everything is illegal, but nothing is enforced).
When I was looking into reducing the temperature in my house, I had three options; Paint the roof with heat reflecting paint (its not just normal paint, but specalised infra-red reflecting paint), pink bat the roof, or vent the roof.
I did considerable research before hand, including calculations to estimate the amount of temperature reduction I would expect.
I first cut vents into the roof as that was the cheepest option. It made a very small difference to the inside temperature morning and afternoon (the house cooled quicker in the evening) but zero difference at the peek of the day.
My estimates put the pink bats as having a larger impact than the paint at a slightly lesser cost (if I installed the bats myself). This made a 2.5 degree C differnce at the peek of the day and made the house quite comfortable.
I didn’t bother with the paint.
Monckton on the waste of Sec. Steven Chu’s roof painting proposal