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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Roof whitening may give you harder winters.
Well I just “painted” my roof white! The elastomeric coating will make the roof last longer giving me a discount on my home insurance, plus the benefit of cooler attic and less air-conditioning use. You could say I did it for “green” reasons, just not the environmental ones. BTW, I live in Florida, so winter is NOT an issue.
When I first heard about painting roofs white, the summer/winter problem was solved by using whitewash. In the spring, use whitewash on the roof. During the summer rains, it washes away and by fall it is dark again, thus gaining more heat during the winter. I think I read it in one of the Popular Science or Popular Mechanics magazines I devoured during the 40’s and 50’s. It is not a new idea.
Slick Willy Nilly
Look at the areas mentioned in Clinton’s statement, New York and Chicago. I’m sure there are unions that you will have to hire to do this work. And “training” to paint a roof? Another government program to get more people into these union jobs.
If you scan google maps around the Orlando area, you will see that almost ALL large area roofs are already light colored. We have been doing this for years because it works. I wonder if I can get ARRA to refund my costs since the coating was made locally?
To label this idea as “Bill Clinton’s” is about as ridiculous as it gets – this idea has been around for at least 20 years now. HOA’s don’t cotton to white roofs. Or much of anything. Painting a flat roof ain’t very hard – but try painting a slanted roof. I can see the broken arms and legs of all those NYC kids now. Notice that California exempted slanted roofs, since those will be seen by the neighbors.
California I think of as one huge, stupid, bankrupt HOA. Which they are.
to quote one poster;
“It works for a Walmart sized building because…..”
One thing to remember is the exterior surface area (ability to cool) versus internal volume (thermal capacity) ratio. Most large buildings are hard to cool and easy to heat. Much more so than your typical house. Most large buildings have plenty of heat inside because each person emits about the same amount of heat as a 100 watt light bulb. If properly sealed, a fully occupied office building requires little heat input even in the Northern USA. The building I work in (upstate NY) turns on the AC about April and turns it off in November. The outside temps don’t hit the 80’s until June and fall below the 80’s by September.
You can see a simple example of this in the ears of an Elephant, due to the small surface area to volume ratio elephants have a hard time keeping cool. One of the main purposes of the HUGE ears is to act as radiators to emit the heat. Mice have relatively smaller ears since they only use them to amplify sound and not to help cool them off.
The whole canard about painting roofs white has been around since the 1970’s “energy crisis” when we were going to run out of fossil fuels by the mid 1980’s or sooner.
Yes indeed in southern climes white (or better yet reflective, i.e. aluminized) roof coatings save energy, in the North the opposite is true. Wonder why aluminized roof coatings have been sold in Florida since the 1950’s and still don’t sell much here in the Northeast ? Maybe the common folks have already figured it out ?
Cheers, Kevin.
“when you don’t know what you’re talking about, the answers to everything seem simple”
I would suspect that even at a mid latitude like Iowa, where you have to heat in the winter and cool in the summer, your annual energy costs would be lower with a black roof. White roofs are also much more expensive to install and have shorter lifespans becasue they don’t handle the UV as well as good old carbon filled butyl rubber or neoprene.
Here’s what I’ve done that’s enabled me to avoid A/C in Seattle:
1. Rooftop deck over a dormer roof has shaded it from the sun and greatly reduced its temperature.
2. Attic fan, thermostatically controlled, draws air in one end of the attic, and down rooftop vents, and out the other end. Gravity-based lovers cover the fan when not in operation.
3. Huge awnings (DIY installation, bought from Sunsetter (cheap)) on the east and south side of the house keep the sun off. I retract them in the cooler (stormy) months.
4. Wall fan in the dormer.
5. Insulation in the rafters.
A gov’t. loan program to encourage others to do likewise would be a good idea, IMO.
@ur momisugly Henry: I don’t have references on sources about these double-decker roofs in Israel. A site search of WUWT should find it (eventually).
Oops: LOUVERS!
Let’s play find the black roof:
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=nAP&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=ignominy&biw=1128&bih=719&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl
See it yet?
Clinton is still delusional or it depends on what the definition of white is.
Well dammit – lets try that link again:
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=34.048677,-117.567444&spn=0.087331,0.128231&t=h&z=13
I like the idea. =)
Monckton’s video is amusing as always.
However, although Chu’s proposal will do nothing for AGW, it still makes sense as a way of reducing AC costs as well as local UHI. Or at least would have if he had advocated aluminized paint for flat roofs and light shingles or tiles for pitched roofs instead of white paint for everything.
False roofers: Areas prone to high winds will usually have building codes that require the rafters be tied down through to the foundation. One cannot just add on a false roof because it will be blown off and destroy neighboring properties. Also, do not forget the reason for shingles. Shingles are designed to be blown off one at a time therefore leaving the integrity of the others in tact. This also lowers repair costs as it is easier and less costly to replace several shingles than an entire section of the roof. So as with any idea, one must examine the entire proposal and consider all consequences of the action.
Planting large trees to reduce insolation is the easiest way to go. They provide shade in the summer and by losing their leaves allow sunlight in during winter. As an added attraction, raking leaves will get you outside and away from reading blogs all day plus provide some extra exercise.
I once read that the most environment-friendly residence of all US ex-presidents houses is the one owned by Dubbya. God bless him.
Sorry. I think the guy’s a jerk whether his suggestion is a good one or not. My neighbors would have a fit if I painted my roof white, and it would almost certainly make my property impossible to resell where I live.
Hey, just to be fair, Dubya had a black woman running around calling him “My husband” while off on costly ‘religious crusades’ all the while also ignoring the toxic financials, claiming credit for the massive easy home buying and stating he would cut the deficit in half before he left office.
O Republican
O Democrat
√ Educated
Correct me if I am wrong…
If everyone painted their roofs white then wouldn’t temperatures between 2000 and 25000 feet still warm and overspread surface areas to extent allowed by ERBE processes (Directionality & flow of convective currents-infrared energy). Wouldn’t warming at those heights also increase Upper tropospheric Response Amplitude thereby inhibiting natural ERBE Processes(Higher-warmer- Heights=more drought!!!!Lower-cooler-Heights=Rainmaking Time).
Anyone?
Only in the US of A. The rest of us: LOUVRES.
DJ says:
July 19, 2011 at 6:41 am
“From the economic side, one very big point is missing. The supposed energy savings, translates into cost savings, and that translates into lower profits for the power companies.
Your power rates will go up to compensate for the lost revenue. They’re doing that right now here in Reno.”
Is that an unintended consequence of granting a monopoly to a privately-owned power company, which is always looking for an excuse to gouge their captive customers? I live in the greater Sacramento metro area, which has two municipal utility districts. Notwithstanding the slogans about the evils and inefficiencies of Big Government, we have significantly lower rates than the surrounding PG&E customers.
Part of the difference can be explained by the larger transmission line lengths per customer–and the resulting higher fixed costs–in the surrounding exurbs and rural areas. Another consideration is that our Boards of Directors don’t receive 7-figure salaries, and they don’t buy themselves corporate jets when they’re feeling depressed.
Maybe we could get the Republicans, as part of the war on terra, to get the defense department to paint my roof white for the summer and black for the winter until the never-ending war on terra ends. Maybe that way I could get something out of all my tax dollars that are going to the defense department.
If Clinton or Chu were really serious about saving energy they would just call for a ban on air conditioning.
The side benefit would be that Washington DC is uninhabitable from June to October without AC.
ROTFL!
But Israel and the US Southwest don’t have that high-wind problem–or only rarely.
How about a retractable (roll-up) fabric awning-type arrangement? Or how about securely attaching the shade-roof to the house by screwing it through the rafters and attaching it with bolts and washers?
I had a metal roof installed, like millions of others. Apparently these roofs don’t suffer from this problem–or their other benefits outweigh it. (They have a side-benefit of improving a house’s resistance to earthquake damage.)
Make that “deciduous” trees.
Unless you have a leaf blower.