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Asphalt shingle color vs. energy cost?

16 years ago

On a house with 'normal' roof slope and a heavily insulated attic, will medium gray asphalt shingles vs. darker shingles make much difference in air conditioning costs? Bldg code prohibits very light-colored roofs. Location has 90+F most summer days.

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Comments (5)

sierraeast
16 years ago
Proper attic ventilation would be more efficient. Grey shingles might have a little more reflectivity, but when asphalt shingles warm up in the summer, they get blistering hot no matter the color. A shingle will get too hot to handle even on a warm sunny day let alone the summer months, that is why getting the hot air circulating and out of the attic is key. If you want to take it a step further, you can install radiant barrier on the underside of the rafter/trusses coinciding with venting to keep the hot from the roof penetrating the attic.

Here's a link to mr. ed sumpolec who is a retiered nasa engineer and gives out his phone # for a reason. It's best imo to talk to him in person about your particular project/install as it varies according to region.

Here is a link that might be useful: radiant barrier
robin303
16 years ago
You can also install ridge vents the length of your roof.
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It is not clear how you intend to access the rafter cavity for any of the solutions. If you insulate the roof with a permit, the building code will force you to vent the rafter cavities and that will probably require vents top and bottom at the vaulted ceilings. The absence of venting will not reduce the life of the asphalt shingles although some roofing manufacturers still pretend that is the case. In this installation the purpose of venting is to allow moisture to escape from the insulated rafter cavity rather than to cool the roof. Ventilation with exhaust fans is rarely effective or energy efficient. You should avoid a negative pressure in the roof assembly. The heat retained by the roofing material is mostly dependent on its color. Light colored asphalt shingles might be cooler than the wood shingles. But adding insulation is the most effective way to lower the heat gain from the roof. The term "breathing" applied to the envelope of a house means it is vapor permeable so moisture is less likely to be trapped in a cavity and possibly condense against the colder sheathing. The traditional solution is to install a vapor retarder on the warm side of the insulation but to know if it is needed in this case would require more information. Spray foam insulation might solve all of your problems if you can get it in the cavity. This is a difficult design issue so don't expect a good solution to be cheap.
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Kframe thanks for replying. I am not sure how good roofing with asphalt shingles over slate would be. You would think that slate would provide a pretty uneven surface and that plywood would be better if necessary. If we go the asphalt shingles route our roofer plans to use the boards if they are tight enough and adding to them otherwise -he did this on a side porch of our own house which was too low slope to take slate successfully (my husband had retiled in slate 20 years before not realizing it was the slope/slate combination causing water in the porch). Anyway the boards there were tight enough to take asphalt. Back to son's roof we are going up on a ladder to take photos of the slate today and submitting them to the Joe Jenkins forum to check if the slate is really shot although one side from the ground looks so. Then, if so, the issue becomes how, if at all, to vent a new asphalt roof (replacement with slate is out of the question). There is no possibility of a soffit vent which is normally associated with ridge vents to get air flowing. So perhaps better not to have anything other than the one gable vent there already although even with the board and slate and associated air gaps the area is very very hot. I would love to hear more about venting these retrofitted old roofs.
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drywall_diy_guy
16 years ago
I used black shingles since I was told they will dry off faster, thus not develop moss, etc. I live in a climate with 8 mo of winter and our summers might see 5 90+ degree days. I have plenty of insulation, and a ridge vent.

Big Mistake!

The black heats up badly! I had to put in a power gable vent for use in the summer. And yes, my vents were functioning properly. Granted we don't have AC. If we did, we would be paying dearly.
mikie_gw
16 years ago
Reroofed here with a White roof and wow what a difference during summer compaired to its original light brown shingles.
Previous home had white painted barrel concrete tile roof and going into the attic there was almost normal outdoor temp during summer months. Coolest attic I ever had been in.

Here is a link that might be useful: ENERGY STAR qualified roof products
mahatmacat1
16 years ago
We're not building a house new, but needing to reroof. We're looking into taking off the OSB along with the old roof and putting the LP TechShield product instead, which is OSB with a pre-attached radiant barrier. Same specs, blocks 97% of incoming, etc...but since the house is already built and one room in there has a cathedral ceiling (DD's bedroom), there's no place for polyiso to be put. The TechShield will answer this issue for us. I'm looking forward to this aspect so much--and DD is looking forward to it even more.

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