In business, as in most things in life, image is everything, so keeping your business premises looking sharp is a priority for any business owner or commercial operator. To that end, commercial painters are busy repainting shops, warehouses and agricultural buildings across Australia. However, a new coat of paint for your commercial building can do far more than simply make the place look nice -- with carefully chosen paints and a little know-how, your building's new paint job can also lower your business's energy bills in a number of ways.
Cool roof painting
Your building's roof is its first line of defence against the awesome power of the sun, and during Australia's brutal summer months, a great deal of heat can find its way into your building through a poorly insulated roof. This is particularly true of the metal roofing found on many commercial building, as metal is a prolific heat conductor and can make the interior of a metal-roofed building stiflingly hot very quickly.
You can boost your roof's defences against the heat of the sun by having it professionally painted. As well as providing a valuable layer of protection between your roofing material and the ravages of the elements, a white or pale paint can also reflect a large proportion of the sun's rays (and therefore heat) back into the atmosphere. As you can imagine, this reduction in heat transfer can make the interior of your business significantly cooler, lowering air conditioner and ventilation usage and subsequently slimming down your energy bills.
However, a lick of white paint isn't the best you can do to make your roof more heatproof. With commercial energy consumption becoming a hot button topic in recent years, many commercial painting outfits also offer a range of specialised reflective paints designed to maximise the amount of heat your roof reflects. These paints generally contain particles of reflective matter, such as glass or metallic elements, and can be enormously effective when applied thoroughly.
Reflective wall painting
The same principles that apply to insulating your roof with paint also apply to your building's walls. A coat of light-coloured paint on your exterior walls and/or cladding can be equally effective when it comes to reducing heat exchange and air conditioner use, and is particularly valuable for older commercial buildings that do not feature the pre-insulated walls mandated by modern building codes. Reflective paints are generally not available for use on walls, however, mainly to avoid blinding unfortunate passersby on sunny days.
Intelligent interior painting
Even the interior walls of your building can provide some measure of protection against high energy bills. You can start by having the west and east-facing rooms of your building painted in paler colours -- these rooms see the most heat gain as a result of the rising and setting of the sun, and pale walls can help reflect some of the sun's heat-causing rays back outside.
Painting some or all of the rooms in your building in white or pale shades can also have another energy saving benefit, by reducing the amount of artificial lighting your business relies on during daylight hours. Pale painted walls reflect far more natural light than darker shades, 'spreading' light around the room without the need for spot lighting. Commercial painters can advise you on the best paints for the job, as most commercial paint blends are given ratings depending on how much light they are capable of reflecting.
Share
