In a continuation on our last blog post, this week we’re brushing up on the environmentally friendly tech that’s come out in the last year. Winter months are a perfect time to spend a little time researching new systems and preparing to offer them to customers next year. As 2019 looms with a possible El Nino and hurricane seasons that seem longer and stronger every year, environmentally conscious homeowners will be seeking green-solutions to their roofing needs, and your company should be ready to meet that demand.
We’re not going to spend much time talking about the literal “green roofs” that make waves with images of urban rooftops being turned into miniature sod farms. Those systems are impressive but are out of the purview of most roofing companies. Instead, we’re going to focus on the green technology and techniques that are simple twists on traditional systems. Our first highlight is the white roof. White roofing has been gaining widespread acceptance and even being mandated in some areas to combat what has been termed the Urban Heat Island effect. Though it can be as simple as applying a white cap sheet to your standard asphalt or bitumen product, white roofing has been shown to be more effective in some circumstances than the plant-based green roof systems. There’s also now more flexibility in coloration for non-commercial applications. If you’d like to look into available products, check out the Cool Roof Rating Council’s Product Directory.
If you tend to concentrate on residential and don’t think you can sell homeowners on a high-reflectance metal system, there are also some shingles that caught our eye this year. In the wake of California’s somewhat smokey year, 3M’s smog-converting shingle granules have deservedly been getting some press. Though we’ve only seen Malarkey incorporating these little smog-suckers, it’s likely that other manufacturers will follow suit in the near future. Especially with polluted urban centers using legislation and code-changes to address their continuing issues.
No discussion of green roof tech is complete without mentioning solar. What’s really interesting about this market is that solar installation is no longer the realm of specialty installers. With the move towards solar shingles and away from large panels, the buy-in for both homeowner and installer has been lessened significantly. If a homeowner isn’t ready to commit to re-tiling their entire roof with solar tiles, they have the flexibility to replace only fractions of their roof with solar tiles until their budget or energy needs catch up. The durability touted by brands like Tesla’s Solar Glass is an impressive selling point as well. The one caveat with most of these solar tile systems is that their production hasn’t quite caught up with demand so getting them in stock for consistent installation is a challenge.
We hope this post got you ruminating on ways you can expand your offerings next year, and saved you some Google-ing. If you have some new roofing tech you think should be on everyone’s radar, be sure to leave a comment! And if you’d like to see the latest developments with our own technology, be sure to tune into our Live Webinar this Wednesday at 5pm! We’ll be discussing all the updates to RoofSnap this year and giving you a glimpse of things to come in 2019. We’ll see you then!
