Should I paint my roof white?

digitalwanderer

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My house just bloody ABSORBS heat in the summer, it's insane! On a 73f day it can get up to 88f in here even with the windows open and a decent breeze...

...I'm seriously considering painting my black, shingled roof white; any opinions?
 
To maximize heat reflection, remember to paint your lawn white too!
 
Going from dark shingles to a bright white would indeed make a significant difference; however, I'm guessing it would look awful and not last very long.
 
solar-powered attic fans actually help alot with this. costco has them online.

In the winter would you apply black paint to help with heating bills?
 
solar-powered attic fans actually help alot with this. costco has them online.

That sounds like a really good idea.

The top of my house used to get noticeably warm and stuffy until we had better ventilation put into the loft as part of replacing the soffets/facias/guttering. The loft space used to get very hot and humid in even mild sunshine and this had the effect of insulating the top of the house.

We also had new windows put it which actually insulate the house better, but they have a semi-reflective coating that helps keep a portion of the heat from sunshine out of the house.
 
My house just bloody ABSORBS heat in the summer, it's insane! On a 73f day it can get up to 88f in here even with the windows open and a decent breeze...

...I'm seriously considering painting my black, shingled roof white; any opinions?

It's a drag in the summer to do this, but make sure you have blinds closed on all of the windows when the sun is up. In the summer we're always battling heat problems at work, despite our insane tonnage of air conditioners, but one of the easiest ways to significantly drop the temperature in the labs is to close the blinds on the windows. If you don't have many windows, make sure to install a lot of them, and then put blinds on them.
 
I do the blinds thing already, and I'd LOVE a few solar powered attic fans...but they were still pretty expensive last time I checked them.

I'd probably be better served adding another 12-14" of insulation up there, and it'd probably be a whole lot easier than painting the roof. Also more effective, since it'll help in the winter too.

I still want a lighter coloured roof though, I never understood the idea of black shingles. :???:

/me wants to get a styrofoam sprayer thingy and just add 2" of styrofoam on top of his roof
 
i painted my roof white with the elastomeric roof coating they use for mobile homes. It make a huge difference to keeping my house cool. As a second advantage, repainting every 5 years insures i never have to replace my roof.

it doesn't look ugly; i live in the desert and many of my neighbors do this
- otoh, saving money is beautiful
 
Well I rethought my original plan and decided on an alternative, (read that as I told my wife about my idea and after she got done laughing she told me what she wanted done :oops: ) I'm picking up 22 bags of cellulose insulation tomorrow which comes with a free blower rental and I'm just gonna blast a heaping layer of insulation in my attic. :)
 
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