Cool Shingles
I need a new roof and my home is located in Pittsburgh, PA. I was browsing the Owens-Corning website looking for a light, EnergyStar color when I stumbled upon their solar reflective “Cool Shingles”. I have asked 6 roofers for an estimate and none of them have heard of them, nor are they interested in giving me an estimate on them. Two of the roofers tried to completely talk me out of them even though they admitted to not knowing much about them. One of the roofers said that because I am in a climate where we are only talking about extreme heat 3 months out of the year, that solar reflective shingles would be a wasted investment and that I should stick with just a light color and a ridge vent. Looking for more opinions about solar reflective shingles.
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Replies
Carol,
Cool roof products make sense in hot climates, especially on homes that have ductwork in the attic.
The vast majority of homes in Pennsylvania don't need a cool roof. If you have ducts in your attic, and you use air conditioning all summer long, perhaps you would be a good candidate. But very few Pennsylvania homes have attic ductwork.
Cool roofs are not desirable during the winter, because they will slightly increase your heating costs.
I priced them for a house we were building last year in NC and they were almost 3 times more expensive than typical OC 30 year shingles and were going to take 16 weeks to get them delivered. They were not in stock locally.