White Roof Summer Dark Roof Winter

There is a third option competing for roof space to take the heat out of cities covering them in photovoltaic cells.

White roof summer dark roof winter.

A study in adelaide australia found that besides delivering cooling in summer they also act as an insulating layer to keep buildings warmer in winter. Your house gets even hotter and. The sun is lower in the winter which means your roof isn t getting the direct sunlight it gets in the summers which means that even with black shingles you wouldn t be absorbing that much heat. Dark roofs may have a small snow melt effect but not a sizeable one.

Winter days are much shorter than summer days so the benefits of having black shingles wouldn t last for very long. A dark roof heats up in the sun and helps reduce your heating bill. Similarly if your roof experiences winter problems like ice dams your roof color probably isn t the primary culprit. The white powder actually reflects away much of the sunlight so the dark roof underneath cannot absorb heat and melt the snow.

But in summertime it s definitely a bad thing. But research shows that the heating benefits of a dark roof in the winter are negligible because days are shorter skies are cloudier the angle of the sun is low and sometimes roofs are covered. When sunlight falls on a white roof much of it is reflected and passes back through the atmosphere into space. In the summer the farmers whitewash these roofs to cool their plants down.