How Your Roofing Affects the Temperature of Your Home

It’s June. It’s hot. Your utility bills are likely going up, and your roof may bear some of the blame. While the temperature inside of your home, especially during the hottest and coldest months of the year, is generally the cause of poor insulation or old, leaky windows, your roofing can also be the culprit.

There are a number of ways your roof can affect the temperature within your home.

Choice of Materials

Your choice in roofing material will have an affect on how much light your house absorbs, which will in turn affect its internal temperature. The more sunlight that is absorbed by your roof, the more heat that will eventually be transferred into your home. Attic insulation can help prevent this, but it will not stop all heat transfer from your roof to your home.

Which material is best at reflecting light and keeping your house cool? While newer asphalt shingles and cedar shakes are a good option, nothing reflects more light than metal roofing. Most people think that, because metal heats easily, it is a poor choice for cooling homes. But this is one of the biggest myths about metal roofing. Metal roofing actually reflects more light than any other material, making it the best choice for keeping a house cool.

The Myth About Roof Colors

It’s common knowledge that black absorbs heat while white reflects it. Logically, one can assume that you would not want black shingles on your home. However, the amount of heat that darker colored roofs absorb is likely going to be too small to impact the internal temperature of your home (it will usually rise a negligible amount). In many cases, especially in colder climates with a lot of snow, darker colored shingles are more desirable because they retain heat from the sun and melt snow quicker.

“Cool Roof” Options

There are “cool roofing” materials on the market that are made from more reflective materials or coated in highly reflective paint. These types of shingles tend to cost more, but they can help keep your house cool during the summer months.

Roofing Structure

We recently wrote a post on one of the forgotten parts of your home: soffit vents. The placement and number of soffit vents you have is an effective way to control the temperature of your home. The more soffit vents you have placed around the exterior of your home, the better ventilated your attic will be, allowing hit air to escape outside your home, rather than filtering into it.

Get a Roofing Estimate Today

Summer is the perfect time to replace your roof. If you need an estimate, get in touch with Schmidt Roofing today!

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