With temperatures in Melbourne bound to climb to over 40° in the coming summer months, we thought a quick look at the benefits that metal roofs have to offer in warmer climates would be highly appropriate.
Constructed from a variety of metal materials — including Colorbond, Zincalume, tin, aluminium, and galvanized steel — metal roofs can withstand just about everything Mother Nature throws at them. From heavy rainfall and hail, and even snow, metal roofs will keep homeowners safe and away from the elements. In addition to being fire resistant, metal roofs are also an environmentally friendly roofing solution, going some way towards lowering temperatures inside your home, thereby reducing your energy bills.
Energy Efficiency in Metal Roofs
Metal roofs are considered a ‘cool’ roofing material within the building industry, making them one of the most energy efficient roofing solutions on the market. In fact, metal roofs are so energy efficient that they can save homeowners anywhere up to 40% on their total energy expenditure.
America’s Cool Metal Roofing Coalition recently completed an in-depth three-year study on the energy efficiency of metal roofing. The study proved that it is the high degree of solar reflectivity embedded in metal roofing that enables it to keep temperatures inside a building so cool. And, white or light coloured metal roofs displayed between 25% and 40% greater reflectivity than darker coloured metal roofs. Dark colours are more likely to absorb significantly greater solar radiation than lighter ones. As such, according to the study, opting for a white or light-coloured metal roof can reduce energy spending by approximately 20%, and also make your home up to 10° cooler than a dark-coloured roof.
BlueScope Steel also offers Colorbond Coolmax steel, a product specifically designed to help reduce the surface temperature of a roof, resulting in a cooler room temperatures. Colorbond Coolmax steel was designed to provide the best thermal performance for the commercial and industrial roofing market, in which the financial and environmental benefits of building materials are generally valued more than aesthetics, such as the choice of roofing colour. A BlueScope Steel study determined that an insulated building that uses Colorbond Coolmax (in the colour Whitehaven) as its roofing material is likely to see a reduced internal temperature of up to 2°, when compared to an identical property with a roof constructed from Zincalume. Click to read more about BlueScope’s study.
Given its cooling properties, some homeowners become concerned that the cost to heat their metal-roofed property in winter will be exorbitant. But this simply isn’t so. In the majority of Australian climates (Melbourne included), the cooling energy saved usually more than offsets any additional heating energy, particularly for buildings that are predominantly cooled during the daytime, such as commercial buildings. This is because, in winter, the sun hangs much lower in the sky making sunlight on your roof much less intense, days are shorter and there is general more cloud cover. Plus, if you combine a metal roof with high-quality insulation, your property will stay toasty in winter for much longer periods of time, without all the additional heating and cooling bills.
So if you’re in the market for a roof replacement in Melbourne, consider hiring the pros at ACR Roofing to install a metal roof for your home!