I live in an older home (by Florida standards at least, it was built in 1980!) that has an aluminum roofed lanai that does not have any insulation on it. Overall, the lanai is great; it provides plenty of shade and since it has the aluminum roof vs a screened roof, I can still use my grill and stay dry when it's raining. The problem is that the roof takes on so much direct sunlight that it gets extrememly hot and heats up the entire lanai space rendering it unusable on the nicer sunny days. I've been looking for a solution and I think I may have found it.
Gardner STA-KOOL is an elastomeric roof paint that is supposed to reflect the suns rays. Elastomeric paints have a greater degree of elasticity and they can also help to seal up leaks. My lanai has a couple of small of leaks in it as well so hopefully it will take care of those problems. The instructions say that you need to put 2 coats of this paint on and it is so thick that a gallon doesn't cover a whole lot. I used a 3/4" nap roller since the paint was so think (normal paint rollers are 3/8) and rolled it on after powerwashing the roof the night before. I was able to do one full coat on the roof and then I decided that I would do the underside aka ceiling just to brighten it up. I was able to get about half of the ceiling done. After painting, I waited for the middle of the day when the sun was at it's highest to check temperatures on the roof. I left one small section unpainted to use for comparison sake. Results are pictured below.
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| Unpainted roof section |
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| painted roof section |
So far so good! That is a 25degree temp difference. In the past, when I walked out into the lanai, I could really feel serious heat radiating down from the ceiling, now it doesn't seem nearly as bad. Keep in mind, this is also after just one coat. I will be going ahead with the 2nd coat and testing again along with seeing if it solved my leak problem! Stay tuned!
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