Urban heat islands are a common environmental phenomenon that can send temperatures soaring 12 degrees higher than nearby non-urban areas. More than ever, builders, architects and city planners are turning to prepainted cool metal roofing to help curb dangerous heat islands.

Urban heat islands occur where a lack of vegetation and a concentration of dark pavements, concrete, and traditional roofing materials exist. With 23 billion square feet of roof area in the U.S., the transition to reflective cool metal roofing materials, both for new construction and retrofitting, can have a positive impact on our environment.

Cool metal roofing formed from prepainted metal has two unique properties at the core of its many benefits – high solar reflectivity and infrared emittance. Solar reflectance is the percentage of all solar radiation immediately reflected from the roof surface. Infrared or thermal emittance is the heat that later returns to the night sky. High reflectance during the day and high emittance at night means the roof surface stays cool, allowing far less of the sun’s heat to invade a building’s interior space.

A test by the Heat Island Group showed buildings with cool roofs use up to 40 percent less energy for cooling than buildings without cool roofs. The reflective qualities of cool metal roofing lead to a reduction in the Urban Heat Island effect, which helps the planet by reducing overall energy needs and building owners with smaller energy bills, especially during peak periods.

Cool metal roofs are also beautiful! New styles, textures and colors are being introduced every day, and advances in cool paint pigments have allowed metal coaters to offer many darker color palettes and gloss ranges with high solar reflectance.

Coil coated cool metal roofs are a sustainable and attractive solution not just for reducing the Urban Heat Island effect, but also for mitigating problems like landfill volume, smog reduction, and severe weather events.

To learn more about the benefits of cool metal roofing, call the National Coil Coating Association at (216) 241-7333 or visit www.coilcoatinginstitute.org.