Roofs are responsible for up to 50% of home’s cooling loads. And that means large air-conditioning bills. If your home overheats in summer and hot weather, reflective roofs and insulation are excellent means to solve the problem. Common dark-color asphalt and fiberglass shingles absorb most of the solar radiation, and are a major cause of high-conditioning costs. A large amount of the unwanted heat in buildings comes in through the roof and attic. To solve this problem the most effective and direct answer is a reflective roof (also technically called cool roof).

As we are looking to gain every advantage we can in building our retirement home, naturally we would look to make our roof as energy efficient as possible.

Also known as albedo, solar reflectance is expressed either as a decimal fraction or a percentage. A value of 0 indicates that the surface absorbs all solar radiation, and a value of 1 represents total reflectivity. Thermal emittance is also expressed either as a decimal fraction between 0 and 1, or a percentage. Another method of evaluating coolness is the solar reflectance index (SRI), which incorporates both solar reflectance and emittance in a single value. SRI quantifies how hot a surface would get relative to standard black and standard white surfaces[citation needed]. It is defined such that a standard black (reflectance 0.05, emittance 0.90) is 0 and a standard white (reflectance 0.80, emittance 0.90) is 100[citation needed]. The use of SRI as a combined measurement of reflectance has been disputed[citation needed], since it has been shown that two different products with identical SRI numbers can yield significantly different energy savings results depending on what geographic region they are applied in, and the climatic conditions present in this region.

Benefits of cool roofs

Most of the roofs in the world (including over 90% of the roofs in the United States) are dark-colored. In the heat of the full sun, the surface of a black roof can increase in temperature as much as 50 °C (90 °F), reaching temperatures of 70 to 90 °C (150-190 °F). This heat increase can contribute to:

* Increased cooling energy use and higher utility bills;
* Higher peak electricity demand (the maximum energy load, in megawatts, an electric utility experiences to supply customers instantaneously, generally experienced in summer late afternoons as businesses and residences turn up their air conditioners), raised electricity production costs, and a potentially overburdened power grid;
* Reduced indoor comfort;
* Increased air pollution due to the intensification of the “heat island effect”; and
* Accelerated deterioration of roofing materials, increased roof maintenance costs, and high levels of roofing waste sent to landfills.

Any building with a dark colored roof, but particularly large buildings, will consume more energy for air conditioning than a “cooler” building – a strain on both operating costs and the electric power grid. Cool roofs offer both immediate and long-term savings in building energy costs. White reflective membranes, metal roofing with “cool roof” pigments, coated roofs and planted or green roofs can:

* Reduce building heat-gain, as a white or reflective roof typically increases only 5–14 °C (10–25 °F) above ambient temperature during the day.
* Create 15–30%[citation needed] savings on summertime air conditioning expenditures.
* Enhance the life expectancy of both the roof membrane and the building’s cooling equipment.
* Improve thermal efficiency of the roof insulation; this is because as temperature increases, the thermal conductivity of the roof’s insulation also increases.
* Reduce the demand for electric power by as much as 10 percent on hot days.
* Reduce resulting air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
* Provide energy savings, even in northern climates on sunny (not necessarily “hot”) days.

Note that today’s “cool roof” pigments allow metal roofing products to be EnergyStar rated in dark colors, even black. They aren’t as reflective as whites or light colors, but can still save energy over other paints.

Bob over at goILOILO.com has a excellent write up / pictures on the methods he used on his house to keep the roof cool have a read: http://goiloilo.com/cool-roof-philippines-metal-roofs-and-cool-buildings-in-the-tropics/. He also has a wide variety of topics regarding the building of his home, a full read of his blog would be helpful to anyone looking to build their home in the Philippines.

*Photo of home on front page is attributed to Bob at goILOILO.com

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When I first realized the extreme costs of electricity in the Philippines ( Energy Costs in the PI (Not What You Think They Are?!?) ), I immediately started looking for solutions to the problem. The very first thought that came to mind was: “Hey, I’m saving up money for this whole retirement thing, what’s the difference if I save a little longer and make the entire house run off of solar energy”. So I set out to find out the “Real” costs to power a 3,000 sqf (300 sqm) single story home. I don’t think I have ever read so many websites related to 1 specific topic in my life. There is tons of information out there and luckily for me it’s not all hype but real world scenarios and people sharing their experiences.

After running the numbers and some rounding up (I always round up, no surprises) I calculated that it would cost approximately $40,000 USD to power the entire home by solar. That includes the solar panels, battery system, inverter system and a standby generator. Not to shabby actually. I figured $40,000 USD on top of a home cost of approximately $75k to $100k wouldn’t be too bad to fend off the Evil Philippine Electric Co-Ops. Figuring that my electric bill would be about 75% of what my bill is here (it’s not that hot in the PI, but it is humid and the ceiling fans ( The Ins and Outs of Ceiling Fans ) would go a long way to help. Also I would slowly get acclimated to the humidity again. I’ve spent alot of time in South Florida and in Okinawa where it is very humid as well. I am convinced that the reason my electricty bill is so high here is attributed to 2 things.

1. I have a 2 story home and spend most of my time in said home upstairs.

2. My office in my home has 6 monitors ranging from 37 inches to 15 inches and 4 or 5 computers running all the time. (They throw off alot of heat)

Obviously when retired this would not be the case and all our planning and initial home design has led us to a single store home. So back to the Solar. 40 grand, not too bad. I started researching kits and specifications on parts that would be needed for the entire process, good thing I’m a engineer, I could probably get it running without any professional assistance, like I said there is tons of information on the web regarding it. So it looked like a win, win situation for us. Pay the 40 grand up front and enjoy no electricity bill for the remainder of my life, ahhhhhhhhh what a nice thing to say

During my research, something was nagging me and it was ……. if Solar Power is so cost effective than why is it not on every house in the USA? There are only 2 homes in my neighborhood with panels on their roof and they are small setups, I assume only for hot water. With all the “get off the grid” incentives the government gives out and the fact that most electric companies here in the states will buy back your excess energy, why isn’t it on every single house. I mean hell, your already taking a 30-50 year note on your house and making payments, it doesn’t raise your monthly that much to add $30k – $50k more on the top.

So whats the reason???

I found the reason and the Lord knows that I did not want to know this I really wanted to go to the top of the mountain with out a parachute. I was ready to take the leap of faith. But alas the grim truth took hold as my massive 40 page Google search / research hit this page ……….. ( The real price of solar power ) An industry that relies on government finds its market falters when subsidies do, too. A quick excerpt from the article ….
“Unsubsidized, solar energy still can’t compete in most energy markets. The pay-back period is too long. Reports of more efficient solar panels are helping reduce costs but about half of the expense for solar is still borne by taxpayers.”

This lead me to find out the “REAL” costs associated with the technology.

The problem is that the solar PV (Photovoltaic) panels are not efficient at all. During my search I found press releases stating that company A was coming out with a 22 percent efficient panel and the median cost panels were only about 14% – 16% efficient. The second problem is that the panels start to loose efficiency (it gets worse, yes it does) at 15 – 20 years, huh?!?! The third problem is the upfront cost (which without the other 2 issues I was ready to pay for) but combine them and you have a technology that costs your $40,000 USD up front and only saves you $100 USD per month. I’m sure you can see where I’m going. It would take my setup 40 years to pay for it’s self! and that’s not counting any drop in efficiency at the 15 – 20 year mark. I am 37 years old, my retirement plan puts my in the Philippines no later than 45 -47 and 42 on the up side. That means I need those panels to operate, without substantial added cost for approximately 30 years, that would put me in my upper 70s and my wife in here early 70s, WE NEVER EVEN GET TO THE 40 YEAR MARK!!!!!! So we never get to benefit from the dream of free electricity Sure my children, with added expense (the inverters need replacing, batteries every so often and the panels when the efficiency drops) would get to experience free electricity for a certain amount of time.

The Evil Electric Companies are going to bleed me dry ;( It’s just not right.

So what am I going to do to stem the tide. Welp for starters, I am going to utilize solar for 1 thing, heating water. It turns out that a large percentage (outside of cooling) of ones electricity bill is associated with water heating. Yes, I’m aware of the small electric and lpg operated water heaters, but really don’t like them. You have to sacrifice water pressure for water heat, kinda sucks. I did some more research and it turns out that for only a 2 or 3 thousand USD you can install a hot water solar panel and system.

That combined with strategic use of LPG (Liquid Propane Gas)(yep, another article is comming and keeping individual A/C units in specific rooms should keep my electric bill under control and allow me to raise my nose (even though I’m not Pislat) at the electric companies.

There might a silver lining to the whole situation. Technology gets better and better everyday, there are prototype technologies out there that have PV panels showing 80% effeciency, that’s a ton better, which means to us that we don’t need as much hardware to power our homes, which may make it feasible. We shall have to wait and see, I will for one be looking again at this subject in depth a couple years before I leave, to see if it becomes a reality.

If you have some thoughts on the topic, or some information to share with the community, jump into the comments section and let us know..

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This is the first of many “Energy Conservation” related articles, I will feature here. Lets first say that the “energy conservation” articles are not for the benefit of the environment (although its a nice side story They are solely for the environment of my bank account. Looking to reduce one of the largest re-occurring bills I have is vital to my retirement plans.

Ceiling fans range from 24 in. to 60 in. in dia. Fan manufacturers usually correlate fan size with room area. Some label their product’s cubic-footper-minute capacity (cfm) on the carton, making it easy to run air-volume calculations. Generally, high-quality 36-in. ceiling fans move between 2500 cfm and 4000 cfm; 48-in. fans move 4000 cfm to 8000 cfm. A quick calculation of room volume tells you what size fan you need.

The volume of the room is not always the most important consideration, however. Often (especially for cooling purposes), one should downsize a ceiling fan to fit the area of a room that’s typically occupied. The occupants of a 600-sq. ft. family room,  for example, might be better served by a smaller fan if the furniture arrangement is contained within a 200-sq. ft. space (drawing left). Because the ceiling fan will still affect air outside the occupied space, you shouldn’t use the  manufacturer’s room-area numbers when sizing a fan to cool just an occupied space. As a rule of thumb, you should divide the square footage of the occupied space by four to determine the diameter (in inches) of the proper ceiling fan. Thus the 200 sq. ft. of occupied space in the above example would be adequately served by a 52-in. ceiling fan.

The right ceiling fan will help cool down sizzling July afternoons and add a nice touch to any room. Ceiling fans are a happy meeting of the economical and the esthetic. They’re one of the few household appliances that can save you money — as much as 15 percent off your energy bills — and look good enough to enhance the decor of nearly any room.

Over the years, the choice of fan styles has broadened beyond the traditional Tiffany model with its dark wood blades and elaborate glass shade. You can now find designs that complement your clean-lined kitchen or contemporary living room as well as traditional bedroom or dining room.

There’s also a fan to meet any budget. The typical retail display includes models that range from less than $100 for a bare-bones unit to well over $1,000 for an ornate design with cutting-edge controls and light fixtures. Here’s a primer on finding the fan that’s right for your home.

Choosing a Fan
When shopping for a fan, you’ll need to know what size and style are right for your room and if any of the optional features, such as light fixtures or remote controls, make sense for that environment. Fans are sized by the length of their paddles, which should be matched to room size. The paddle span on residential fans ranges from 29 to 54 inches. Select paddle size based on the room you want to cool; see “Size It Right.”

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In my research for finding a hard budget that could rely on to base my retirement fund off of, I started researching re-occurring bills and what they would need to be. There are articles on the web that kind of gloss over the topic, many saying “retire on $800 USD per month in the PI” and the like, but none nailing down the numbers. I started looking at my costs here and trying to get cold hard numbers for what I could expect in the PI. I looked all over the web and couldn’t really find anything very helpful.

I was talking with my wife and it hit me, like duh……… why not just ask a friend in the PI to email me his electric bill. And that’s exactly what I did. This bill is a good size house in a suburb outside of Manila. Each area has it’s own electric company and prices will vary but this should give you a good idea of what to expect. You can take these numbers and apply them to your current usage and get a solid picture of what is to come. I will give a comparison with my own electric bill from the middle of summer in Texas, about as expensive as your gonna get in the states, on a medium sized 2 story home.

We run our central air conditioning 24/7 (set at 65) and have 5 computers running 24/7

Click on the picture to get a larger clear version of the bill in a new window/tab.

Next up we have a friends bill from a house outside of Manila, good size house in a upper class neighborhood, I don’t think there is central air but the house is bigger than mine here in the states.

Click on the picture to get a larger clear version of the bill in a new window/tab.

Now for the comparison, I’ll do most of the work for you

As you can see I was floored by the comparison.  Almost 2x as much for electricity! If I were to apply the Merlarco rate to my KWh used my bill here in the states would be $781 / month!!!!!!!!!!!! This is suppse to be a 3rd would country where everything is cheap, no? Right then and there, my mind started racing and yelling what are we going to do?, not many if any expats have $800 USD a month to spend on electricity. I’ll admit that our house here is like a igloo, heh, (my poor Neneng, always has blankets and robes within reach)

The numbers don’t lie. That set me off on a mission to find any and every economical way to save on electricity bill. I am aware that most Philippine households are not kept at arctic temperatures But that does not negate the fact that I have always been more comfortable when my environment has been cool. Doesn’t mean I don’t like it to be hot at the right times , I mean playing golf in the cold is no fun, heh, but when your in bed and your sweating that is just not pleasant.

I will have several articles covering what you can do and what we are planning to do in regards to our house construction and lifestyle to stem the tide of the Evil Philippine Electric Coops.

Stay Tuned.

If you would like to share your electric usage and pricing, hit up the comment section and lets get this beast under control

Related Posts:

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• Choosing a Architect / Builder in the Philippines
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• The Next House is the Last House
• “Dirty Kitchen” Will / Does your Retirment Home Have One