Does anyone know anything about that special house paint that is supposed to help keep your house cool? I live in AZ and the inside of my house gets so hot. We've done many things, shutters, sun screens, pleated shades, radiant barrier & insulation in the attic, planted trees (but they're still rather small) and my house is still so hot. A big problem is that we have a ton of windows and they are not dual pane. Unfortunately replacing them isn't in the budget (although we've spent a pretty penny on all the other things we've done). We will need to repaint our house in the near future and I just saw an add for the paint that is supposed to keep the house cool. I'm not sure if it's a gimmic or if it really makes a difference. There are places in our house where you can touch the wall and it feels warm in the summer or cool in the winter. I'd love to hear from people who have this paint on their house and/or people who really know about it. Thanks!
Lots of things come on the market. Not all of them are good in the long run. If I were you, I'd call a professional painting contractor and ask for an opinion.
Never heard of it :( Sounds like a great idea too!! You could look into putting E coating on your windows. You can get it any lowes or home depot. But it's like window tint you put on the inside of your windows. Our windows are dual pane but they are 20+ yrs old with no e coating and the seal has let the argon gas leak out too. We put this on our front windows where we got the hot late afternoon sun and wow what a difference it makes just sitting next to them!! We thought about the radiant heat barrier but our roofer said it would void our warranty as it can cause warping problems with the decking from the moisture that can build up. You could also see what and how much insulation is in your exterior walls and there is a way you can put blow insulation into them to help too. Had to have that done to my house in Northern Indiana!!
S.
I have never seen such a product so I can't speak to its effectiveness but you need to understand you can paint your home pink with white poky dots and it isn't going to change the inside temperature of a non efficient home.
I can tell you that replacing the windows is the way to go though I understand you can't afford it at the time. It reduced my gas and electric bills by over 200 a month to give you some idea of how well that works. I would just hate for you to go through the time and expense to paint your house only to find it didn't change a thing, ya know?
If the heat is gaining and losing through the windows painting your house won't change that.
I haven't heard of any paint like that. We too live in AZ and our house is always hot and our electric bill is outrageous! I called a company called REEis and they came out and did an energy audit on our house and told us the problems and what we needed to fix them. They only charged $99.00 and it was a great experience. They took this little infa red tool and could see where we were lacking in insulation and spent over an hour in our attic taking pictures of the problem areas up there too. We had upgraded our air conditioner 10 years ago and the company that did it used really cheap connecter boxes for the duct work and they were made of insulation so they have deteriorated so the line was a 12 inch and when it went through the box it was only blowing air at a 5 inch line. We are getting things taken care of and can notice a big difference already. Great Company!
I haven't seen that exact type of paint, but I did see some that is supposed to be like the radiant barrier. We have the plywood that comes with the radiant barrier on the underside of our roof and insulation on the floor of the attic, but the side walls of the attic have no insulation. We thought about using this type of paint on the inside walls of our attic.
We tried a paint additive that was supposed to insulate SD's room. She said she was cold. What happened was that it kept it hot in the summer and warm in the winter. Not the effect we were looking for. Maybe DH added too much?
If your house has hot spots, consider looking at the insulation. Maybe it shifted in your wall. We also insulated our attic with 10 more inches of stuff they sprayed in and it really made a difference this summer.
ETA: Oh, you did insulate. Sorry I missed that. The next step might be to save up and replace the windows, then. See if your state or power company has any rebates on efficient windows and products. We got some money back when we installed our new, more energy efficient front door. It may help bring the price into what you can afford. You say you have small trees - what about focusing on the side that will be less shaded or the side that gets the hottest? We have replaced our windows piecemeal and have 2 big ones that need to be upgraded at some point but that point is not now. We focused on the bedrooms and kitchen.
Depends on the kind of paint you're talking about.
There's the ceramic additive paint (used on the tiles on the space shuttle), there's reflective paint, there's heat retaining paint... heck... there's ever radar deflecting paint (used on fightercraft).
The ones I know that work... you're looking at dropping 30k on paint.
For that amount of money... do your windows instead.
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Po'boy Window Fix:
Foam Core Posterboard. It's about 1/2 inch thick. Cut to fit your windows. Attach a little handle to them so you can pop them in and out as you like very easily.
Broke'man Window Fix
Double thickness cardboard.
It looks like it morphs to a more reflective color in hot weather and a more heat absorbant color in cooler weather. The issue I see is it requires repaint every four years to stay effective. It also iaore costly so that could be ahuge invesent every four years.
Go to Insuladdglobal.com. We used it on our house on the interior and exterior - when you mix it in the paint sprayer, you have to get a bigger opening for the sprayer - but it really does make a difference. Now, we did this, along with getting new dual pane windows, at the same time. We did it in May, and our electric bill was $100 less per month - even that month! The insuladd actually helped with not echoeing in our rooms, too. We would definitely do it again.
