Update, EcoLiving Retrofit work at the Community Complex
Quite a few people who are familiar with the Community Complex building and know how they expect it to feel in hot weather, have commented on how much cooler the building is since the heat reflective paint went on, and have asked for more information about it.
The paint we used for the metal roof is Energy Star Metal Flex, by Astec Paints, www.astecpaints.com.auThey have other Energy Star paints for other surfaces such as tile roofs, rendered walls, weatherboard walls, etc. Kevin Jacka says he plans to paint his whole house in it. We used white, which is the most effective, but they have Energy Star heat reflective paints in other colours, including dark colours, which are also very effective.
For the big Community Complex building the cost to have Kevin Jacka supply and apply this paint worked out to $9.50 per sq metre incl GST. So for example to paint a 160 sq m house roof might cost about $1600 incl GST.
If you prefer to organise the painting yourself, we bought the paint from Mike Bailey Paint Services in Mooroopna. I understand Mike is President of the Victorian Painters and Decorators Association, and I found him to be very helpful with advice.
The roof windows in the supper room and kitchen are coming along, look great, and will be a terrific high vent for letting the heat out, and quiet kitchen ventilation, in summer.
Watch out for the big... er. giant new ceiling fan in the main hall. 6.1m diameter! With a maximum speed of only 40 revs per minute, in comparison to 1200 revs per minute maximum speed for conventional smaller ceiling fans.
Apparently these big fans turning slowly move more air with less power consumption, more quietly, than lots of little fans going fast.
Working with natural ventilation for cooling does require opening windows, so if you look carefully you will notice lots of well matched and unobtrusive new fly screens on windows in the Kinder, VTCH, Meeting rooms, Supper room, and elsewhere. Thanks to Fi-Pro of Shepparton for these.
You will notice some west facing windows are a little darker, but lots cooler. The new tinting film on them rejects 64% of solar heat gain - that makes a big difference on a hot afternoon. David Arnold