We know for a fact that dark colors absorb heat while light colors reflect heat and sunlight. That’s why people who live in countries with tropical climates usually wear light-colored clothing to help keep themselves cool. This is also true for steel buildings. Your steel building will be hotter if you have a dark-colored roof.

Cool roofs are mostly used in commercial and industrial steel buildings application. What are cool roofs? A cool roof is a roof consisting of materials that has the ability to reflect the visible, infrared, and ultraviolet wavelengths of the sun, reducing heat transfer to the steel building. At the same time, it has the ability to radiate absorbed solar energy. These characteristics are better known as solar reflectance and thermal emittance. Most cool roofs for steel buildings are white or light-colored.

It has been proven that cool roofs can reduce the roof surface temperature by up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, thus lessening the heat transferred into the steel building below. This translates to reduce energy costs, maintain comfortable interiors, lessen maintenance costs, enhance roof’s durability, and reduce urban heat island effect.

Some benefits of cool roofs for steel buildings are:

· Reduce steel building heat-gain
· Create savings by reducing the need for summertime air conditioning
· Increase the roof’s life expectancy as well as the steel building’s cooling equipment
· Increase the thermal efficiency of the roof insulation
· Reduce the demand for electricity by as much as 10% on hot summer days
· Reduce air pollution and greenhouse emissions resulting from the use of cooling equipments
· Provide energy savings even on sunny days when the weather is not necessarily hot

For steel buildings, metal roofing products in dark colors, even black, that are coated with “cool roof” pigments may not be as reflective as those in whites or light colors, but they can still provide energy savings over other paints.