Painting your homes walls white reduces Cooling Energy costs by 11%

rollandelliott

http://www.ba-pirc.org/media/pdf/ReflectiveWalls_DParker.pdf

Took me about an hour to find this article. Next time I paint my home it's going to change from the brown 80% sun soaker to white.

niel

Re: Painting your homes walls white reduces Cooling Energy costs by 11%

many like the white or other light colors as it also allows a lessening in lighting costs.

RadioGuy

Re: Painting your homes walls white reduces Cooling Energy costs by 11%

Also, for those of us who live in hot climates painting your roof white makes a huge difference in cooling costs. I have done this at two locations now. With the first I never had to run my swamp cooler again. The second, where we get into the 100s regularly, I can easily keep my house in the low 80s (instead of mid 90s) on the really hot days. My brother painted his garage roof and it easily dropped the temperatures by 10 degrees.

drees

Re: Painting your homes walls white reduces Cooling Energy costs by 11%

RadioGuy wrote: »

Also, for those of us who live in hot climates painting your roof white makes a huge difference in cooling costs. I have done this at two locations now. With the first I never had to run my swamp cooler again. The second, where we get into the 100s regularly, I can easily keep my house in the low 80s (instead of mid 90s) on the really hot days. My brother painted his garage roof and it easily dropped the temperatures by 10 degrees.

What kind of roof paint did you use? Half my roof is flat (rolled bitumen) - been thinking of doing the same both to reduce solar heating in the summer and keep the roof cooler in general which should boost solar production a smidge as well.

westbranch

Re: Painting your homes walls white reduces Cooling Energy costs by 11%

geez all those quaint old white Greek houses with their white roofs really do work to keep you cool! Who knew...

DavidOH

Re: Painting your homes walls white reduces Cooling Energy costs by 11%

Yes! That's why I did it. ^--- Right here. It's harder to cool it than it is to heat.

Utana

Re: Painting your homes walls white reduces Cooling Energy costs by 11%

RadioGuy wrote: »

Also, for those of us who live in hot climates painting your roof white makes a huge difference in cooling costs. I have done this at two locations now. With the first I never had to run my swamp cooler again. The second, where we get into the 100s regularly, I can easily keep my house in the low 80s (instead of mid 90s) on the really hot days. My brother painted his garage roof and it easily dropped the temperatures by 10 degrees.

I would like to know what kind of pain you used on the roof too. Would it work on asphalt shingles? Been wanting to get a nice white tin roof for our house, but its really expensive.

rollandelliott

Re: Painting your homes walls white reduces Cooling Energy costs by 11%

painting ashphalt shingles white might reduce the heat load on your roof 15% but that only results in around 3 to 5% energy reduction per FSECU. given the cost of paint, it is not ecnomically beneficially usually.

getting a cool roof, a new energy star appliance, a higher effcience heating/cooling system are upgrades that really only make sense at the end of usefull life of the item most of the time.