Cool Roofs Are Failing – Heat-Blocking Tech Is the Future
This is exactly the conversation nobody in the “cool roof” space wants to have – because it exposes the structural weakness of 90% of the industry.
Cool roofs could be one of the most powerful tools we have across society:
lower heat, lower energy use, CO₂ lower, lower peak demand, lower grid stress, cooler cities, better human and animal health, less water use, better sleep, better productivity, fewer heat-related deaths. The value chain is huge.
But here’s the blunt truth:
Most cool roofs today are just white paint dressed up as climate tech.
They reflect well on day one, degrade fast, peel, collect dirt, lose reflectance, and fail under real solar loading in the future. The relative “SRI” score disappears and the benefit goes with it. You’re lucky to get 18 months of genuine performance, and 5–10 years before the coating needs replacement – which means waste, money, maintenance, landfill and reduced real climate impact.
Why? Because nearly all of them are:
- straight acrylic bases
- titanium dioxide pigment for colour
- no infrared blocking
- no thermal mass control
- no multi-ceramic structure
- little defence against UV breakdown
They rely entirely on visible-light reflectance, while 53% of the solar spectrum — the infrared heat — punches straight through. White paint can’t stop it.
Now imagine the opposite.
A coating that blocks infrared, slows thermal diffusivity, resists UV, resists breakdown, and maintains performance for decades. A coating that doesn’t just shine white for a lab test – it actually prevents heat from entering the substrate, regardless of colour, dirt, or weathering.
That’s a different category.
That’s not “cool roof”.
That’s a “super cool roof“.
IR blocking means:
- the building envelope takes less heat load
- air conditioners run less
- peak grid demand drops
- indoor temperatures fall naturally
- asphalt softens less
- urban heat island shrinks
- animals suffer less heat stress
- school performance improves
- mental health improves
- worker safety improves
- CO₂ drops for every kWh avoided
- far less maintenance, waste and repainting
- critical infrastructure lasts longer
All from controlling the radiation load at the surface – not trying to counteract it with bigger HVAC systems, higher energy bills or “whiter whites”.
The industry’s problem is simple:
They’re stuck in a reflectance mindset because it’s easy to market, easy to test, and easy to sell. But reflectance alone is primitive. It ignores physics. It ignores infrared. It ignores thermal diffusivity. It ignores durability. It ignores real world conditions.
If we want cool roofs to actually solve societal problems at scale, they need to stop being just another acrylic white paint – and evolve into materials that are proven to block heat, not simply reflect light.
