Highly Reflective Cool Roof Tops Off New Environmentally-Friendly Cold Storage Facility
 Philadelphia, Pa. - Compared to commercial buildings, attaining LEED certification for an industrial building is not an easy task, as evidenced by the fact only about 2% of all LEED - New Construction registered buildings are designated as industrial. However, that did not deter Innovative Cold Storage Enterprises (ICE) of San Diego, California. The firm recently completed a huge, new facility that is expected to be the nation's first LEED - NC Gold certified cold storage building.
Included among the environmentally responsible features of the new facility is an energy-conserving cool roof with an insulation value of R-42 and a solar reflectance index (SRI) of 110.
New Topcoat Used on New Facility
Designed and built by Hamann Construction of San Diego, the facility, known as ICE-2, is the second cold storage facility built by Hamann for Innovative Cold Storage. The first, ICE-1, was constructed in 1998 and is half the size of ICE-2. The ICE-2 roof construction is essentially the same as ICE-1 except for the topcoat. "On ICE-1, the finish coat is an acrylic coating onto which roof granules were broadcast," Hamann project architect, Paul Giese, explains. "On ICE-2, we wanted a finish coat that had a longer life expectancy and much higher solar reflectivity, not only to comply with California Title 24 cool roof requirements, but also to provide long-term energy savings."
Chosen for use on ICE-2 was Kymax, a thin-build elastomeric coating from United Coatings Corporation that provides high initial and aged solar reflectance, color stability, and weather resistance over new or existing roof surfaces. Available with a 20-year warranty from United Coatings, Kymax is based on Kynar Aquatec, a new water-based, low-VOC PVDF fluoropolymer technology developed by Arkema Inc. to deliver the same durability and performance as Kynar 500 PVDF resin-based coatings. However, rather than requiring factory baking, coatings based on Kynar Aquatec can be field applied to a variety of substrates, including metal, PVC, SPF, concrete and wood, and as a finish coat over acrylic basecoats.
Solar Reflectance a Key Concern
With solar reflectance and thermal emissivity values greater than 0.85 each, Hamann LEED project administrator, Phoebe Hamann, notes that the bright white Kymax topcoat not only complied easily with Title 24, but also generated an extremely high SRI of 110 for use in LEED credit calculations. She also notes winds from the Pacific Ocean deposit a considerable amount of dirt onto the roof surface. However, the topcoat's ability to shed dirt allows it to remain white, a key factor in the coating's ability to retain its solar reflectance over time. For more information, please visit http://www.kynaraquatec.com/.
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