How do you keep a steel building cool in the hot summer months?

We all know that the summer months are getting hotter and we will do just about anything to stay cool. The last thing we need is to be inside a steel building where the temperature can be considerably higher than the outside temperature. With temperatures sometimes exceeding 90 or even 100 degrees, it is important to keep steel buildings cool, especially when people may be working indoors or even living in a steel building that has been converted into a residential home.

Of course, air conditioning is one method that can be used. Some install window air conditioners in their steel buildings or can install a complete air conditioning unit, but sometimes doing so can be quite expensive in a number of ways. First, the cost of the system and installation can be expensive and then there’s the electricity bill that goes with it. Since steel buildings tend to trap heat, the air conditioning system can run very harsh and is actually not very environmentally friendly.

Since the sun shines on the roof of the building, there are tasks that can be performed on the roof to reduce heat absorption. The idea is to get the building to reflect sunlight to avoid absorbing the sun’s rays. These methods are:

– Use of light colored asphalt tiles. The color that may work best is white because white reflects sunlight.

– You may also want to consider white tiles to reflect the sun’s rays. It may be a bit more expensive, but it will reflect a good portion of the heat rather than absorb it into the building. For light-reflecting ceilings, air conditioning energy can be reduced by up to 23%.

There are other materials that can be used on the roof that have different degrees of reflective ability. The amount of reflection that the roofing material has means that you will save more money on cooling costs.

– Asphalt shingles reflect 5 to 15% of the light and save about 1% of cooling costs.

– Clay tile roofs reflect 25-35% of light and can save about 35% on cooling costs.

– Concrete tiles reflect 10-30% of light and can save around 20% on cooling costs.

Tar and gravel roofing materials tend not to reflect light because they are darker in color.

For those who must use a cooling system in addition to a cold roof system, the amount of money that can be saved is quite significant. These actions also have a minor impact on the environment. Doing other things, like placing fans on the windows of steel buildings to draw in hot air and draw in cold air, can help if the work environment can tolerate the lack of an air conditioning system.

There are some environments in which some form of air conditioning must be used for the well-being of those who work inside the building. However, the ceiling is what is exposed to most of the heat, so it is the ceiling that can make the difference in whether or not you have an air conditioning system and it is the ceiling that also determines how hard it is. to work that system. .