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White roofs don’t look great which is why I think they’re largely relegated to commercial buildings instead of residential ones. They get dirty fast, are super
by rtkwe 6y ago
White roofs don’t look great which is why I think they’re largely relegated to commercial buildings instead of residential ones. They get dirty fast, are super bright and don’t fit with the traditional look for houses. On commercial flat top roofs they are hidden so it doesn’t matter if they’re blindingly bright or stained because they’re not visible.
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago>They get dirty fast do they get dirty fast in both humid and not humid climates? I would think in not humid, dry climates it might be more useful?
- frabert 6y agoDust would settle on them despite of humidity levels I think
- Retric 6y agoIt likely rains enough in humid environments to make dust a non issue. Both because you get vastly less dust in the air and because it washes away most dust that does show up as long as the roof has a significant slant to it. However you don’t need white to see significant benefit over a black roof, even just green helps.
- bryanrasmussen 6y agoI think they mean in non-humid environments the dust would be an issue.
- rtkwe 6y agoThey show any dirt really clearly so for houses it’s a crummy choice because it’s not hidden on out of view (on most houses, if it’s a modern house with a flat roof you could potentially use a flat white painted roof) which means cleaning a lot.
- bryanrasmussen 6y agoarchitecturally is a non-flat roof good for dry, hot environments? I think I tend to associate flat roofs with a dry and hot environment.
- iamthepieman 6y agoIt's bad for wet environments and snowy ones. You need to be super vigilant about inspection and maintenance if you have a flat roof where I live in northern U.S. While two feet of snow on the roof will provide a small amount of insulation, every material in contact with it needs to be rubberized or sealed every couple of years or both. Shovelling your roof with a flexible waterproof membrane can lead to gouges which defeat the impermeability. And one small leak can go unnoticed until it has seeped into the visible part of the house and rotted rafters and supporting timbers. Drainage on flat roofs get clogged and need to be cleaned or you end up with standing water. A sloped metal roof will last for 30+ years without any maintenance. A flat roof of any type will require several maintenance operations a year and last half that unless you have a commercial tar and gravel roof which is heavy and imposes additional load bearing requirements on the structure.
- everybodyknows 6y agoI'm recalling a technology from 70s Southern California: low-slope, tar paper for water seal, half-centimeter fragments of broken light-colored rock scattered on top. Dust falls through the gaps onto the tarpaper. One downside being that after a heavy rain, some fraction of the gravel makes its way down from the roof.
- citrin_ru 6y ago> White roofs don’t look great What looks great and what is not significantly affected by what are you used to see. In the place I've ground up galvanized steel roofing was common and I think it looks fine. But someone who used to dark roofs likely would tell that galvanized steel looks ugly.