Cool roofs have many benefits, including to boost aircon efficiency and make solar work more efficiently. So why is this being ignored in Australia's major cities?
ABC TV mentioned something about NSW backpeddling on banning black rooves when developers said it would cost an extra $7K per house. I’m struggling to find where this was from or anything that supports it – perhaps I misheard?
“[T]he approach taken … would have undermined the economics of delivering housing across the spectrum including social and affordable housing as well as private housing,” Mann said. “This would be a disaster for providing key worker housing, ie teachers, nurses, those on low income and disability housing.”
I’m no tile manufacturer, but surely black-pigmented clay is more expensive than unpigmented (white, terracotta & brown) clays? And unpigmented concrete tiles are also much lighter than black tiles (esp if you choose the right aggregate)? Perhaps they’re only thinking of the most expensive and most white options (full-body stannic oxide pigmented clay & white cement)?
I would imagine it’s more about the commonly used kind of shingles that are just paper, tar and sand. They’re incredibly cheap, but also mostly black because of the tar, and they do absolutely nothing for insulation like a ceramic or clay tile would. Actual tiles are already expensive. Especially the red terracotta spanish style ones.
I never really understood the rationale either, but we are talking about shitty colorbond rooves. For non Aussies that’s a tin roof, western Sydney new developments are plagued by this, a dystopia of zero trees, houses with dark rooves that almost touch each other and surprise surprise, temperature breaking new records every summer.
Why it is more expensive to make a tin roof of a light colour rather than dark is beyond me. Why the government would give a fuck about greedy developers margins even less, but I have a theory.
ABC TV mentioned something about NSW backpeddling on banning black rooves when developers said it would cost an extra $7K per house. I’m struggling to find where this was from or anything that supports it – perhaps I misheard?
Best I can find is this:
I’m no tile manufacturer, but surely black-pigmented clay is more expensive than unpigmented (white, terracotta & brown) clays? And unpigmented concrete tiles are also much lighter than black tiles (esp if you choose the right aggregate)? Perhaps they’re only thinking of the most expensive and most white options (full-body stannic oxide pigmented clay & white cement)?
I would imagine it’s more about the commonly used kind of shingles that are just paper, tar and sand. They’re incredibly cheap, but also mostly black because of the tar, and they do absolutely nothing for insulation like a ceramic or clay tile would. Actual tiles are already expensive. Especially the red terracotta spanish style ones.
I never really understood the rationale either, but we are talking about shitty colorbond rooves. For non Aussies that’s a tin roof, western Sydney new developments are plagued by this, a dystopia of zero trees, houses with dark rooves that almost touch each other and surprise surprise, temperature breaking new records every summer.
Why it is more expensive to make a tin roof of a light colour rather than dark is beyond me. Why the government would give a fuck about greedy developers margins even less, but I have a theory.
You can make black with just charcoal, but white is usually made with more expensive chemicals like Aluminum and Titanium.