Our cities and towns have become heat-traps. The need for our urban spaces to reduce thermal retention and mitigating the heat-island effect is critical. The Cool Roof Tiles, an ingenious glazing process patented by H & R Johnson (India), enables reduction in solar gain thus creating an efficient and passive mechanism to reduce temperatures and helping with thermal comfort.
Conventional construction materials used in urban environments – such as concrete and steel – have a tendency to absorb and emit solar heat at a greater extent as compared to trees, vegetation, and other natural surfaces. As a result of this, structures in metropolitan cities release this thermal energy throughout the day, causing the ambient day and night temperatures in these areas to be drastically raised. This phenomenon is known as the Urban Heat Island Effect.
The Endura Cool Roof SRI tiles are manufactured using a special glaze composed of alumina silicate fine particles embedded with nano particles of zirconium silicate and zinc oxide admixtures, fired at a very high temperature. Through research conducted by H & R Johnson, it was discovered that these tiles reflect about 75% of the solar rays which reach the surface of the roof, enabling the surface temperature to drop by about 15 degrees Celsius.
On a unit level, this results in a drop of ambient indoor temperatures, reducing the electrical load required to cool interior spaces of a building through electrical ventilation and air conditioning. This translates into more functional and efficient buildings in our cities. Furthermore, these tiles also make a significant difference on a much larger scale, as more efficient structures not only mean they require less electrical energy, but it also results in cooler ambient temperatures for the cities, thereby reducing the impact of the heat-island effect. In the long term, this small intervention will help mitigate the all-pervading global warming phenomenon and indirectly (through reduction of air-conditioning loads), protection of the ozone layer.
Although it has been scientifically proven that white surfaces reflect heat more than any other colour, the Cool Roof tiles offer a spectrum of 6 beautiful pastel colours other than white – whose Solar Reflecting Index is much higher than a standard white tile. The Endura Cool Roof SRI tiles have achieved the fine balance – developing energy efficient, highly practical tiling solutions that are created with a sense of both- aesthetics and functionality⊗
