Design & Build With Metal: The Great Roofing Race

With Stimulus monies now becoming available, every state, city, and industry is racing to get their share. The roofing industry is no exception. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provides millions of dollars to the Department of Energy for research in the field of Building Technologies. So it is reasonable to expect the roofing industry to tap into those funds for improving energy efficiency and sustainability of roofing systems on new and existing buildings.

Within the past few weeks, I’ve been involved in three such examples of racing after the funds from the Feds. The Cool Metal Roofing Coalition has identified many specific topics that require more research on how to improve energy efficiency. Cool metal roofing has been documented to show 20-40% savings in cooling energy costs in various climates and building types. But is that enough? With more stringent codes, standards and federal mandates, the end game appears to be net-zero-energy buildings. So today’s energy efficiencies may not be great enough to get us there. So the Coalition is identifying areas of research that push the envelope even further. The focus on a roof “product” may be shifting to more emphasis on a roof “system”. Those systems or assemblies have multiple components that can interact to reduce heat gain/heat loss even more than the reflective nature of a roof surface alone. These components may also allow for natural metal roofing to be “cool” by today’s standards. In addition, research and development of improved coatings for metal roofing may lead us to even higher solar reflectance and thermal emittance properties of the family of metal roofing.

The Cool Roof Rating Council is in this race as well. They have identified areas of research that reach across all types of roofing products. Individual roofing manufacturers and their trade associations have all tested their products and reported on examples of buildings with a particular roof type, but as an industry there are few independent field demonstrations that prove the benefit of cool roofing. The CRRC is proposing to design such case studies for the good of all cool roofing products. There are also questions that remain unanswered in the area of cool roofing when it comes to the use of the Solar Reflectance Index value to gage how cool a roof is. Research is needed to determine if two roofs with identical SRI values can in fact have different surface temperatures, or in other words, have different levels of “coolness”. And with the ever increasing number of rating and labeling programs, there will be a need for more training on how roofing products are tested and evaluated. These and many other topics are under consideration by the CRRC for their share of the Stimulus funding.

The roofing industry is large, but not well represented as a single voice when it comes to advocacy or public policy influence. Compare the roofing industry with the concrete industry, or the plastic industry, or the lighting industry. To attempt to change the fragmented nature of the roofing industry, the Center for Environmental Innovation in Roofing, with the cooperation of the DOE, arranged for a Roofing Research Summit in Washington D.C. recently. The summit was attended by representatives from all major roofing industries in the US and Canada, national laboratories, the insurance industry, and some major roofing companies. The goal was to identify research subjects that were needed to advance the entire roofing industry. These included policy issues, technology, standards, and resources. There was enough common ground for friendly competitors to work together on a roadmap that could lead to a change in how the roofing industry is perceived by lawmakers, regulators and policy makers.

So even if the monies at stake with the roofing industry are not “shovel ready” in the eyes of the government, there are plenty of organizations and manufacturers involved with roofing that see this race for federal funds worth running. Tomorrow’s roofing systems may look entirely different than today’s. And if that is the case, we may be looking back at this point in time when so much research and development in the area took place with the financial support of the federal government and Department of Energy. Let’s hope we cross the finish line of the race with a new outlook on how roofing can have a significant impact on the energy usage of a building.

Scott Kriner is the president and founder of Green Metal Consulting Inc. He is a LEED Accredited Professional who began his career in the metal construction industry in 1981. His company is a member of the U.S. Green Building Council, the California Association of Building Energy Consultants and the Residential Energy Services Network (RESNET). Scott can be reached by email at skriner1@verizon.net, or by phone at (610) 966-2430. You can also visit him on the web at www.greenmetalconsulting.com.

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