What's the Most Energy Efficient Roof Material?
Energy Efficiency & Your Home
An energy efficient home, is typically a more comfortable home as it has a more stable temperature and therefore less reliance on heating and cooling. This naturally reduces your energy bills and helps improve your carbon footprint.
Energy efficiency is impacted by a whole range of variables including the climate, your home’s orientation in relation to the sun, your home’s design, surrounding trees, building materials, insulation, the number and type of windows, flooring, and the roof material. For a full range of resources, review Australia’s Guide to Environmentally Sustainable Homes.
As a homeowner, you’ll be faced with a lot of decisions to make when it comes to either building a new house or completing a home renovation. From the overall layout and design, to what type of energy-efficient roof to install, there are many important choices to make to ensure you’ll have maximum structural protection, as well as a highly energy-efficient home.
When it comes to roofing, it’s not only the material that you’ll need to consider. The roofing shape, level of insulation and roof colour all play a role with energy efficiency. Consider the following factors as part of the design and consult a roofing specialist if you have any further questions.
Passive Heating & Cooling
Taking advantage of passive heating and cooling which is the use of natural light and wind to help regulate the temperature naturally, can make a significant impact to efficiency throughout your entire home.
Heat Retention & Ventilation
We all know that hot air rises, therefore how that heat is managed the area under your roof is vital to your home's climate control efficiency.
Eaves
Eaves play an important role in providing shade from the hot sun, especially in areas where you have large windows.
Roof Insulation
In addition to wall and floor insulation, it’s very important to ensure you install roof insulation. This helps prevent warmth from escaping in winter and the heat from entering your home in summer.
Roof Colour
Darker colours absorb heat, whilst light colours do a better job of reflecting the sun and absorbing less heat – which keeps your home cooler. Lighter colours and vented metal roofing installation can provide energy savings of up to 25 percent. Therefore, when selecting the most efficient roof material, make sure you also consider the colour.
What Is the Most Efficient Roof Material?
There are a number of roofing materials available that all have their pros and cons. Some materials collect and store warmth while others reflect and dissipate it.
When it comes to choosing the most energy-efficient roofing material for your home, review the factors we’ve outlined above as well as the features, aesthetics and cost of each material. We’ve put a simple guide together to outline what options are available to you and the associated energy savings.
Metal Roofing
Metal roofing is cost efficient, durable and lightweight. It’s also very reflective, meaning that it’s energy efficient in sunny environments. It’s also fire resistance, is easy to install and is regarded one of the most sustainable roofing materials.
However, metal roofs are not very energy efficient in warm climates or on those scorching summer hot days that we experience here in Melbourne, as the heat can quickly pass through into your home. Similarly, in winter don’t to a great job with heat retention. In addition, metal can be easily damaged and therefore replacing smaller sections of the roof is harder to complete.
Tile Roofing
Concrete tiles offer a key advantage over metal roofs in that they provide better natural insulation to your home. They have inherently high thermal emittance values and therefore can withstand and absorb the heat better in summer and retain more of the warmth in winter.
In addition, their efficiency is partly based on the nature of the installation which provides improved ventilation. As each row of roofing tiles overlap, channels form above the roof deck that allows for air circulation. These air channels provide avenues for hot air to circulate out before penetrating the building envelope.
Concrete tiles are also wind and storm resistant, often lasting many decades with minimal maintenance and upkeep. However, tiles don’t suit all homeowners, as they have a higher material and installation cost compared with a metal roofing option.
Get in Touch
To summarise, for energy efficiency, a tiled roof is your best option however it’s necessary to incorporate other factors such as the colour, insulation and the overall roof design. If you have any questions about your existing roof, our team area available for complete roof replacement, roof repairs or roof maintenance. Contact Us on 03 8738 3451.