In order to beat the summer heat, people are painting their roofs white. This is a very simple and effective solution to reduce the heat by several degrees. By nature, white color reflects heat and light more than dark colors. That is the reason why they are either filling the roof with white paint or with cooling tiles. I have also been thinking about this for a very long time.
I have a small garden on my rooftop, and to keep the floors safe from the garden water, I wanted to paint a layer of white cement on top of the roof. Now if I do this, it will serve two purposes. It will also act as a light reflector, and at the same time, it will not spoil the floor if I water the plants and keep my plants, and it will be very easy to clean.
Cost-effective solution
Most of the families in India are all of middle class and they don't want to invest a lot of money in cooling tiles. Most of the new buildings have their roof tops filled with cooling tiles because that comes as a cost along with the building cost. But for older buildings and for people who are poor and cannot afford a lot of money, they use white paints or white cement to paint their roof top. It will also look good, and at the same time, it can be one of the cost effective solutions for a normal family. Doing this multiple times will also not cost much when there is a need.
Summer is becoming very hard
People are indeed doing this to prevent their homes from excess heat in this summer. One of the biggest reasons why we need this is that we don't have enough green cover in the house. Most of the places in the City have all concrete floors, and even if there are trees near the house, people fear cyclones and cut them off. My mom keeps complaining about excess heat during summer, but she wants to cut off all the trees and fill in everywhere with concrete floors. I keep asking her how else we will be able to breathe fresh air if we don't have enough green cover.
I don't remember seeing this much excess heat two decades back. It used to be hot, and our homes did not even have an AC system. Today we don't have enough gree cover near us, and not just our homes, but everywhere the green cover is reducing and gradually increasing the heat. This is something that we have done and is no act of nature. Today we cannot imagine sleeping without AC. But if we have enough green cover near us, it is still a possibility because plants and trees like the Sun and they take all the heat and keep us cool.
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Posted Using INLEO