Cool Roofs
Americans spend about $40 billion annually to air condition buildings — one-sixth of all electricity generated in this country.
Why choose ENERGY STAR reflective roofing?
- ENERGY STAR qualified roof products reflect more of the sun's rays. This can lower roof surface temperature by up to 100F, decreasing the amount of heat transferred into a building.
- ENERGY STAR qualified roof products can help reduce the amount of air conditioning needed in buildings, and can reduce peak cooling demand by 10–15 percent.
During building design and when your existing roof needs replacement are both excellent times to consider reflective roofing.
Lower your air conditioning costs and qualify for an additional incentive when you install a reflective roof product on your home. By reflecting the sun's heat off of the roof, the product reduces the heat coming into your home – and reduces the amount of time your air conditioner runs.
A reflective roof coating is applied to roofs to help reflect more sunlight from the surface, thus reducing the amount of heat absorbed by the structure. Also known as cool roofing, these roof coatings are available in a number of colors, surfaces, and thicknesses and can make a huge difference when it comes to saving money on energy costs and usage. On top of that, they also aid in creating more comfortable indoor environments, and play a role in prolonging the life of roofs and roofing materials.
How a Reflective Roof Coating Works
Cool roof coatings work to keep your home cool in two distinct ways. The first is by solar reflectance, or the coating's ability to reflect sunlight away as soon as it hits your structure. Instead of absorbing the sunlight and heat like a traditional roof, a cool roof reflects the light and heat away from your home, keeping your home cooler in the process. The other way that cool roofing helps to keep your home cooler is through thermal emittance. These roof coatings are now made with special materials that increase your roof's thermal emittance level, or your roof's ability to radiate absorbed heat back into the atmosphere instead of down into your home. It's this potent combination of high solar reflectance and thermal emittance that make these roof coatings so effective at keeping your home cool and your energy costs and usage down.
Reflective Roof Coating and Energy Savings
What kind of energy costs and usage savings are we talking about here? Significant ones. It's important to realize that the amount of benefits you get from your reflective coating will vary depending on the shape of your home, the coating you choose, how energy efficient your home already is, your local climate, and whether you use air conditioning or not. However, if you live in a hot climate that experiences warm temperatures and sunny days for a substantial portion of the year, you can expect energy savings of up to 70%. If not, your energy savings from applying a reflective roof coating could range anywhere from 20% to 70% when itýs all said and done.
Shopping for a Reflective Roof Coating
The most important decision you're going to make when shopping for cool roof coatings is the color. Reflective coatings come in white, a variety of darker colors, and in high reflection coatings. What you decide on here can make a huge difference. White coatings are by far the most effective, and reflect anywhere from 50% to 90% of the sunlight and heat that hit your roof. Highly reflective coatings, which most often resemble a paintable aluminum coating, come in second with reflectance levels in the 60% to 70% range. And if you decide to choose looks over performance, colored coatings significantly reduce the reflectivity ratings to 15% to 35% (which is still better than no coating at all). When you make your decision, keep in mind also that if your new roof coating reflects enough light and heat (65% for flat roofs and 25% for sloped roofs), it will also qualify as an Energy Star rated roof and will earn you tax breaks on top of the high energy savings.
Application and Other Improvements
These coatings can be applied on your own, you can hire a professional to do the job for you, or you can look for roofing materials that have reflective coatings already baked onto the surface. And if you're serious about improving the energy efficiency of your home, talk to an energy auditor or general contractor about other modifications you can make to improve your efficiency ratings. Improving traditional insulation in your attic, installing reflective attic insulation, and improving attic ventilation are all smart steps to take, along with applying reflective coatings, in order to get maximum energy efficiency out of your home.
A high-performance roof can be a powerful asset in reducing energy consumption by becoming an energy efficient roof - a Cool Roof. When used with appropriate insulation on low-sloped or flat roofs, a high-emissivity Duro-Last Cool Zone reflective roofing system can:
- Reduce building energy consumption by up to 40 percent.
- Improve insulation performance to reduce winter heat loss and summer heat gain.
- Preserve the efficiency of rooftop air conditioning.
- Potentially reduce HVAC capacity requirements.
- Decrease the effects of Urban Heat Islands and related urban air pollution.
Insulation
Attic Insulation
Loose-fill insulation, made of fiberglass, is blown into spaces using special pneumatic equipment. The blown-in material conforms readily to building cavities and attics. Therefore, loose-fill insulation is well suited for places where it is difficult to install other types of insulation.
Roof Insulation
Roof Insulation, installed directly to the top side of the roof, is used for insulation any may also be used to provide roof pitch for flat roofs with poor drainage.
Day Lighting
Velux Sun Tunnel
Rooms filled with natural light and fresh air are invariably more beautiful, spacious and uplifting to your spirits. Daylight is the essential element that transforms conventional rooms into splendid spaces that add value and quality to your home and your life.
A beautiful way to brighten your home with natural light is through skylights. As a Velux Solutions
Contractor, we install only the best skylights on the market.
- All skylights and sun tunnels are made with impact-resistant glass, meeting all hurricane codes.
- Velux sky lights are ENERGY STAR ™ approved, letting in light while blocking heat.
- Skylights come with a variety of options including blinds, sun shades, venting skylights.
And then there's the breeze. VELUX skylights, SUN TUNNEL™ skylights and roof windows let you bring the best of the outdoors inside with you
Today, as for the past 60+ years, VELUX is the world leader in roof windows and skylights. This is no accident. It is a result of our intense focus on creating the best quality, most energy efficient day lighting products available.
Over the years we have worked to identify the key components necessary for virtually any successful day lighting project, and we have created our product program to match. The result is a complete system of day lighting products unmatched anywhere. Take advantage of our experience by incorporating the complete system into your day lighting project.
Finished attics and bonus rooms typically appraise at 100% of the value of the rest of your living space while basements typically do not.
Did You Know?
Sun Tunnel with a Shingle Roof System.
Sun Tunnel with a Tile Roof System.
Velux Skylight with a Shingle Roof System.
- Bright light regulates the suprachiasmatic nucleus clock, which is known by most as our bodies internal clock. This clock keeps our bodies set to the correct time.
- Electric lighting accounts for one-fifth of the total electrical energy used in the U.S.
- Students perform significantly better in environments that are lit with natural, rather than artificial light. The study, one of the largest of its kind, tracked test scores for 22,000 students in California, Colorado and Washington. Researchers report that learning rates were 26 percent higher in reading and 20 percent higher in math in rooms with the most natural light.
Source: Heschong Mahone Group
- 20% of our population suffer varying degrees of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Individuals with SAD may experience emotional depression, a drop in physical energy, an increased appetite, and an increased need for sleep. Lack of sufficient daylight is directly linked to SAD.
- As you age, the lenses of your eyes thicken and the pupils shrink in size, causing your eye to adapt much more slowly to changing light conditions. Researchers McFarland and Fisher reported that to accommodate the adaptation of the aging eye, the amount of light required for visual acuity doubled for each 13 years after the age of 20. It is clear that softer, natural light equals better vision.
- American homeowners said if they had a choice of accessories for the ultimate dream bathroom, No. 1 on the list would be a skylight to bathe the bathroom with more natural light.
- That sunlight heals a variety of skin problems. A bit of sun, 15 minutes or less on a regular basis, may help control eczema, acne, psoriasis and even dandruff. UV rays interfere with the proliferation of abnormal skin cells that trigger eczema and psoriasis. Researchers are working to pinpoint more precisely how UV rays affect the skin's immune system.
- That American companies lose as much as $22.8 billion each year to lost productivity resulting from poor ventilation.
Source: Harvard School of Public Health.
- That studies comparing natural day lighting to conventional electric lighting show that students who attended elementary schools where natural day lighting is used have better attendance, better dental records and grew more - 3/4” more over a 2 year period.
- That people need vitamin D for calcium to be absorbed by the body to strengthen teeth and bones and other tissue to maintain a healthy skeleton throughout life. Two sources of vitamin D are diet and sunlight. In healthy human bodies, 80% of vitamin D is developed through exposure to natural light. A vitamin D deficiency could result in the brittle-bone disease osteoporosis, which affects mostly women. Skylights and milk - a winning combination!
- That "Sick House" symptoms develop because the house literally can't breathe. As a result, it gets congested with internal pollutants or Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs). Common sources of pollutants (VOCs) in the home are adhesives, upholstery, carpets, furnace exhausts, fireplaces, pressed wood cabinets & cupboards. VELUX venting skylights allow your house to breath!
- Often described as that pleasant, "new smell," VOCs can be harmful. Short-term exposure to VOCs can cause headaches, nausea and irritate eyes, throat and nose. New houses are insulated and sealed so well that no fresh air enters in. Moisture builds up but can't escape and that makes a perfect breeding ground for mold.
Sources: Hometime and EPA.
Downloadable Brochures
Velux Residential Skylight Brochure - 
View
Velux Product Warranty - View
Velux Sun Tunnel Brochure - View
Velux Impact Skylight Brochure - View
Velux Why Skylights Brochure - View
Velux FAQ Brochure - View
Velux Tax Rebate Brochure - View
Viewable Online Videos
Preparing for Deck Mounted Skylight Installation Video - View
Fixed Deck Mounted Skylight Installation Video - View
Venting Deck Mounted Skylight Installation Video - View
Sun Tunnel Installation Preparation Video - View
Sun Tunnel Rigid Tunnel Installation Video - View
VSE Skylight 3D Product Installation Model - View
Ventilation
Ventilation requirements for temperature and moisture control.
A number of studies sponsored by federal energy funds are under way to look at ventilation rates and methods. However, several studies previously made can help with this decision. The maximum ventilation rate is required to remove heat during the summer cooling months. Attics can reach temperatures of 150 to 160 degrees F during a summer day, although outside air temperatures are only 95 to 97 degrees F. The cooling load for a home air conditioner depends on the difference in temperature between the inside and outside air, and reduction of attic temperatures from 155 degrees to 105 degrees F will result in a significant reduction in cooling load. In a home with poor ceiling insulation, heat movement through ceilings may account for 30 percent or more of the total cooling cost. With a well-insulated ceiling, this source of heat may account for only 12 to 15 percent of the total cooling cost. Thus, high attic ventilation rates are most important for poorly insulated ceilings. A poorly insulated ceiling is one whose R rating is less than 14 or one with fewer than 4 inches of fiberglass, rockwool or cellulose insulation.
Attic temperature depends on the amount of solar radiation, construction details and the rate of ventilation. Calculations indicate that on a July day in Texas, a ventilation rate of one air change per minute for a typical attic using 95-degree F air will lower the peak attic temperature to about 101 degrees F. Providing half air change per minute will lower the temperature to about 106 degrees F. Thus, the first half change per minute is most effective and a doubling of this rate only achieves about 5 degrees F additional cooling. Studies indicate that further increases in ventilation are not effective in significantly reducing attic temperatures.
Winter attic ventilation must be sufficient to remove moisture vapor moving from the living space to the attic. In general, ventilation adequate for summer cooling is more than adequate for winter ventilation. Winter rates need not be more than about a tenth of the summer rate.
Calculate the required summer ventilation rate by determining the volume of attic space and dividing by 2. This will be the cfm (cubic feet per minute) of ventilation air needed. The volume is determined approximately for a rectangular house by multiplying the height from the ceiling to the peak/ridge (H) times the width of the house (W) times the length (L) and dividing by 2 -- ( H x W x L / 2 ). For a gable roof, this will be reasonably accurate. For a hip roof house, the volume will be overestimated but adequate.
Why Do You Need Proper Ventilation?
Roofs and attic spaces have two major enemies in all homes: heat build-up and moisture accumulation. Left unchecked these forces can cause a premature deterioration of the roof structure and materials as well as damaging insulation and increasing energy cost. The only defense is proper attic ventilation.
An effective well balanced roof ventilation system allows air to move in a pattern that results in a uniformly cool attic space prolonging roof life and increasing living comfort.
Ventilation Tools
Master Flow® Solar-Powered Intake Booster™ |
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Perfect... for houses with insufficient soffit ventilation. Installs without an electrical connection. |
A solar-powered Roof Exhaust Vent will help to:
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Remove excess heat and moisture to protect your roof from premature deterioration.
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Safeguard your attic possessions against mildew damage.
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Limit the growth of harmful mold.
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Protect your roof from premature deterioration and roof rot.
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Minimize peeling and extend the life of exterior and interior paint .
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Guard against ice damming in harsh winter climates.
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Possibly reduce excessive heating and air conditioning costs
Master Flow® Solar-Powered roof exhaust vents are a key part of the GAF-Elk Smart Choice® Roof System Solution, and have even earned the prestigious Good Housekeeping Seal.
- Vents Your Attic…
Removes damaging heat and moisture from your attic.
- Makes Ventilation Systems Better…
More effective than (and a great replacement for) roof louvers or turbine style vents.
- Superior Protection…
Helps prevent wood rot and extends the life of your exterior paint.
- Energy Saver…
Solar powered to eliminate related utility costs.
- Impact Resistant…
Solar panel tested to withstand hail and foreign object impact for long-lasting operation.
- Peace of Mind…
Backed by 5-year ltd. warranty with 2-year labor plus protection.*
- Weatherproof…
Passes 110 mph wind-driven rain tests. **
*See ltd. warranty for complete coverage and restrictions.
**Tested under controlled laboratory conditions.
Ventilation of the home attic is important for two reasons. During the summer, excess heat that builds up in the attic during the day results in high energy costs for cooling. Also, moisture produced within the home may move into the attic if ceiling vapor barriers are not used. If this moisture is not exhausted from the attic it can condense and cause insulation and construction materials to deteriorate. Thus, temperature and moisture control are the major reasons for providing attic ventilation.
Warning about Icynene Systems
Do NOT install Icynene insulation in your attic
- Voids all roofing manufacturer's warranties
- Voids Kelly Roofing warranty
- Not recommended by the American Plywood Association
- Currently, there are discussions of outlawing Icynene in the next revision of the Florida Building Code
- Why? There have been incidents where a small roof or plumbing leak in buildings where Icynene was applied have caused severe structural damage and roof cave-ins before the building owner ever knew there was a problem.
- How? Icynene, both open cell and closed cell, skim over during curing creating a water-proof layer and trapping water. If a leak occurred you would not know about it until it is too late. The trapped moisture rapidly rots out wood trusses and decking. In one such case the roof caved in and came through the ceiling right into the master bedroom. Luckily the owners were not home when it happened.
- We strongly discourage Icynene installations and suggest proper ventilation to provide the greatest benefit.
- Not ventilating has been shown to increase asthma and allergies.
Downloadable Brochures
MasterFlow™ Solar Exhaust Brochure - View
Solar Attic Fan Brochure - View
Solar Energy
The earth is warming, the ozone layer thinning, the population booming, the economy struggling, the reliance on foreign oil growing. Not to sound the alarm, but sustaining our enormous levels of production and consumption while still leaving the planet intact for the next generation is a legitimate concern.
Before it was en vogue to consider the size of your "carbon footprint," Kelly Roofing has been incorporating environmentaly friendly ways to harness renewable energy, i.e.; clean, self-sufficient, virtually free forms of energy. In fact, step outside. Look up. Squint. Wave to the beaming overhead sun and thank it for having the capability to supply enough energy in a single day to power the world for a year. And even though this may not be news to some, the better news is: we've been developing innovative ways to capture that energy and make it work for you.
State-of-the-Art Solar Metal Roofing
Dr. Anna Marie, Health Specialist for the Weather Channel and host of the nationally syndicated better living show Your Life with Dr. Anna Marie, is transforming her energy-sucking 1970’s Florida-style ranch home into an eco-friendly, energy and water efficient, and ultimately healthy home. The Greenovation of Terra Verde is showcasing the latest technological advances in solar metal roofing with the help of OneSource Coil Coaters, ASI Building Products and Kelly Roofing and Energy Savings Solutions.
Incentives for Solar Energy
Most 50 states and the District of Columbia offer financial incentives to help support solar energy investment. Rebates are available in many areas and they can range from $1.90 - $5.50 per watt. For information on state and federal net metering, cash rebates, accelerated depreciation, tax incentive programs, feed-in tariffs, and renewable energy ("green") credits, consult the Database of State Incentives for Renewable Energy, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy at www.dsireusa.org.
Solar Energy Benefits
Economic Benefits
Delivers power at a fixed price over twenty years versus the escalating and unpredictable costs of oil, gas, and grid electricity. Lessens our collective dependence on foreign oil imports, contributing to the balance of trade, and to national energy security. Creates local jobs.
Environmental Benefits
Slows the burning of fossil fuels, the largest contributor of green house gas emissions, and air pollution. Preserves natural habitats that are often damaged or destroyed by oil, gas, and coal exploitation. Saves forests that are often cut down for cooking and heating purposes.
Social Benefits
Provides vital resources to the millions of people worldwide who lack access to reliable power or safe drinking water. Increases availability of electronic communications and can help stem mass migration to crowded urban centers.
The Kelly Roofing Solar Power Meter Reading Website
Below is the actual site that is showing Kelly Roofing Solar Power readings. This is completly functional and you can click on the stats on this chart showing all history, details , and voltage. This is how much power Kelly Roofing is generating for their site by using solar power.
Downloadable Brochures
Residential Grid Tie (GTS) Investment Costs - View
Duro-Last® Roofing System Accompanies Solar Panels - View
Solar Save Roofing Tile Brochure - View
