The lazy way to go green: paint your roof white!
White roofs have worked for thousands of years in the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cities. (Photo: www.obviousmag.org in Architecture)
Oooh! Don’t you love a good, easy way to help the planet! We all live under a roof, let’s paint ‘em white. Happyzine supports the New Zealand White Roofs project, which is run by Auckland based Ian Montanjees. Painting your roof white is a simple yet surprisingly effective way to help cool the climate (find out more here), in even the Obama Administration are doing it! Here’s a short up-date from Ian Montangees:
“The last few weeks have been the most intensive yet for the White Roofs Project. A lot of preparation behind the scenes for some of these actions, especially researching for the conversation with Auckland Council. A major task this year is to find a funding mechanism to take the project to the next level, as a full time 18 month campaign, for I think that is how long it might take for white roofs to become ingrained in our NZ culture for global warming reduction.
When the Mayor of Auckland, Len Brown stopped for a short chat at my White Roofs display at EcoFest (7th Feb), I joked with him that if you’ve got Brown, you could get green, by going white! He seemed to like the idea.
I had the pleasure of presenting at the NZ Green Building Council evening on 7th February. Their Green Room event was all the more enjoyable by being hosted in the well-designed IAG building. I was one of three speakers and am told the talk was well received by the diverse audience of over 100 people, and will have helped open peoples minds to investigating the benefits of white roofs in NZ.
Presenting at the Pecha Kucha evening, 16th February, was fun and well received. Approximately 150 people attended the event, with 12 speakers giving short talks on their creative projects from film and wine making to glass blowing, jewellery, and poetry. I think White Roofs fitted in as a creative use of technology to help towards a better world at this critical time. There will be a short video of my talk coming soon.
Melbourne City launched their cool roofs initiative a few weeks ago, encouraging the use of white roofs. For an article, see here.
Cool roofs are included in the launch of their “1200 Buildings” campaign with the aim of retrofitting 1200 commercial buildings in Melbourne city, increasing building efficiency while often also saving money through lower operating costs. The “1200 Buildings” website has many resources for those considering retrofitting their buildings, see here.”
For more information and to sign up for regular updates:
Sign up to the White Roofs Newsletter or check out the site.
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If you have a reasonably well insulated and ventilated roof, it should make no difference what colour it is. A white roof is appropriate if you have an uninsulated roof in a warm/hot climate and some commercial buildings would probably benefit from this but I am yet to be convinced that painting your residential roof white will have any benefits at all. You’re much better off insulating or increasing the insulation of your ceilings. In cooler parts of NZ, a black roof may be appropriate…
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