3 Tips for Affordable Cool Roof Design

If you struggle with sky-high home cooling bills during the warmer months of the year, then you should consider your cool roof options. A cool roof reflects the sun's heat away from your home and passes less of the sun's heat that it does absorb into your house. 

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the installation of a cool roof can greatly decrease home cooling bills and reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions that result from the creation of energy used to cool a home. 

While there is an endless array of cool roof designs, keep these three tips in mind when you want a roof that is cool, yet also affordable. 

1. Choose the Right Shingles

While you may think that you have to invest in an extremely expensive type of roof shingle to keep your home cool, the truth is that you can create a cool roof with affordable asphalt shingles. Any asphalt shingle style can be included in a cool roof design when the shingles are coated with special granules that are made to reflect the sun's heat and UV rays. 

While a traditional black asphalt shingle reflects just 3 to 12 percent of the sun's heat away from the roof, asphalt shingles equipped with reflective granule technology reflect up to 25 percent of the sun's heat.

You can further decrease the amount of the sun's heat your asphalt shingles absorb by choosing shingles that are light in color. If you find white shingles unattractive, opt for taupe or light gray shingles instead. 

2. Consider Radiant Barrier Installation

You can keep much of the sun's heat that your shingles do absorb out of your attic and home when you install a roof radiant barrier. This barrier is a sheet of highly reflective metal that is attached to the underside of your roof decking.

When a good radiant barrier is installed properly, it can block up to 97 percent of the sun's heat that your shingles and roof decking absorb before this heat enters your home. In fact, radiant barriers can reduce attic temperature by 30 degrees F or more and reduce the cost of cooling an entire home by up to 17 percent. 

Be sure to leave a space of at least 3/4-inch between the radiant barrier and any other insulation you have in your attic to allow the barrier to perform its job properly. 

If you find out that you need to replace your roof decking, or sheathing, due to wood rot or other roof damage, then instead of adding a radiant barrier to your new decking, opt for radiant barrier sheathing. This sheathing already has one reflective surface that acts as a radiant barrier, while traditional sheathing does not have a reflective surface at all. 

3. Upgrade Your Attic Insulation

Your attic insulation plays a large role in how much of the sun's heat that does enter your attic also radiates down into your home during the hot summer months. Good insulation will slow this transfer greatly, while subpar insulation will allow more of the heat that your roof absorbs to radiate down into your home.

First, look into the R-value of your attic insulation and increase it if possible. The R-value of insulation is a measurement of its resistance to heat flow. If your home was built in the last decade and your attic is equipped with the insulation it was built with, then your attic is likely equipped with R-30 insulation according to building codes.

Add more insulation and increase the R-value to 60 to not only help keep your home cooler in the summer but also keep it warmer in the winter. Also, look for insulation that is compressed and replace this compressed insulation, since the R-value of insulation is greatly decreased when it is compressed.

If your home cooling bills have been high during the warm months of the year, then invest in a new cool roof. Your cool roof does not have to be expensive when you keep these three affordable cool roof design tips in mind. Contact the roofing experts at All American Roofing to schedule a new roof installation today.