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If you’ve got a dark roof, you’re spending almost $700 extra a year to keep your house cool - One Step Off The Grid (onestepoffthegrid.com.au)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)

When we had our house built, we requested a “Surfmist” colorbond roof with “Woodlamd Grey” gutters for this reason.

The fucking idiot incompetent builder ordered Woodland Grey sheets and had it on within one day. We called him out on it and he offered to paint it. (This would have negligible effect on thermal properties). He then came to my workplace and tried to bribe me with $10k to accept it.

We told him where to go and 1 week later we had our Surfmist roof and our neighbours vacant block had a huge pile of Woodland Grey colorbond.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Hope you’re there 15(+) years 😉

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

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:

“[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)?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

You can make black with just charcoal, but white is usually made with more expensive chemicals like Aluminum and Titanium.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (3 children)

I have a dark roof and I am always always heating my home (except in summer, when I open windows).

I'm in greater sydney. Why is my house so cold?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Ahhh. Common problem. You installed the tiles backwards. Flip your entire roof upside down and that will fix it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

faark me. How much you reckon it costs for a job like that?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

About tree fiddy.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The only explanation would be an attic (any air gap) &/or high quality insulation between the roof and living area. If you have solar (incl pool), that would divert a lot of heat too.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Dogshit insulation, reasonable roof space + sarking. Gets v toasty in the room that has less roof space even though we did the insulation there with high quality stuff so maybe it's the air gap?

have solar actually. Not over the one warm room. Maybe it's that combo!

Good thoughts. Also fuck I wish we double glazed windows. It gets to like 4 degrees in my bedroom over winter nights.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

That'd do it! Double glazing and high quality insulation should have been the minimum requirement for every new build this century. Not a fucking add-on. All these shitty pro-industry regulations do is shave 1% off the cost of new builds, and transfer that to a 50-100x larger expense in energy over the life of the structure. Our building standards are fucking criminally corrupt and incompetent.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Yeah lol of course solar is gonna make your house colder. The Sun's rays are made of photons with a certain amount of energy. That energy can either turn into heat, or it can turn into electricity. Solar panels turn 20% of the energy into electricity instead of heat.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Maybe your iron levels are low.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

They're actually the highest they've ever been which is interesting. Assuming you're joking re my bio I was lifelong anemic till going plant based. Apparently calcium is an antinutrient for iron and vitamin C assists in absorption so it's possible that because now I get most of my iron alongside vitamin C I absorb better, whereas my evil vegetarian past was serving to harm my via cheese consumption.

Who knows though? I think it's quite funny.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I was being sarcastic lol. Thanks for the little tidbits though, very interesting.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (2 children)

No worries. Idk if I'm on the spectrum on something but I tend to just assume people are serious about Q's cause it feels brutual if you ask a question and someone laughs at you/ignores it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

I threw the /s tag at the end of my comment to try and convey I was joking.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

You have autism vibes /pos

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

But how much do I save on heating during winter?