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Key Takeaways

  • Reflective coatings have saved clients 20% to 70% on energy. Scott Bredehoeft, a KPost sales manager, reports that range for clients who coated or recovered existing roofs with reflective material, with return on investment often arriving in less than three to five years.
  • The US Tax Code treats roof coating as maintenance. That classification means 100% of the cost can be written off in the year the project is completed, rather than depreciated over time. For a commercial owner, that changes the after-tax math on the project considerably.
  • Commercial buildings burn 17% of US energy. The EPA Energy Star program puts commercial building energy consumption at 17 percent of the national total, costing more than $100 billion a year, and generating 17 percent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. Small efficiency gains move real money at that scale.
  • Waterproofing is an air quality investment. Sealing a building against moisture from leaky windows and condensation prevents the mold and mildew that degrade indoor air and spread illness among occupants. It also cuts energy costs by making the envelope airtight, and it avoids expensive remediation later.
  • Both improvements support LEED certification. Many cities now require LEED for new construction and for extensive remodels or renovations. Energy efficiency work and envelope watertightness both count toward it, so the same spending serves compliance and return on investment at once.

The booming North Texas economy has allowed commercial building owners and property management groups to consider re-investments in their holdings. Based on its completion of more than $280 million in roofing and waterproofing construction in the past 10 years, KPost Company has some suggestions for property owners and managers which will likely pay long-term dividends.

Spring is an excellent time to consider building infrastructure investments such as waterproofing, specialty installations, repair and maintenance, lightweight insulating concrete and commercial roofing. The highly-trained, safety-focused teams at KPost Company are experts at executing any and all of these improvements.

Property managers can realize the best return on investment on two types of improvements. These are:

  • Making the building more energy efficient and watertight
  • Improving the air-quality and water-tightness of the building

By investing in construction projects which lead to these ends, the property owner or manager can not only realize a better ROI, but the building can earn LEED certification. According to its website, “The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, was formed in 2000 and has become a cornerstone in building standards and environmental concerns.” LEED certification is now mandated by many cities for all new building projects and extensive remodels or renovations.

How to Improve Energy Efficiency

According to the U.S. Environmental Agency’s “Energy Star” program, commercial buildings in the United States consume 17 percent of the nation’s energy at a cost of more than $100 billion per year. They also generate 17 percent of our country’s greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to climate change. Even small reductions in this energy consumption can result in substantial improvements to a commercial building’s bottom-line.

“There are several areas where commercial property managers can make their building more energy efficient and watertight,” noted Scott Bredehoeft, sales manager for KPost Company. “For example, additional insulation in the roofing system can substantially decrease the energy consumption of the building. This is true for both the summer and the winter.”

“Another tactic for energy savings is to use a white reflective coating for your roofing project,” he said. “This reflection is measured by the percentage of radiation that strikes the roof’s surface and is reflected away from it. If the energy is not reflected, it is absorbed and in the hot, Texas summer this means additional energy is needed to cool the building.”

“By covering the old roofing system with reflective coatings or film, it can become more reflective.,” he noted. “And this makes it more energy efficient.”

“Our clients have saved between 20 percent and 70 percent in the cost of energy by coating or recovering current roofs with reflective material,” Scott noted. “In many cases, the return on investment (ROI) was realized in less than 3 -5 years.”

Not only is this a smart investment in a commercial building, since coating the roof is recognized as a maintenance item by the U.S. Tax Code, 100 percent of this cost can be written off in the year the project is completed. This is another excellent ROI for the owners.

How to Improve the Air Quality of a Building

As noted in a previous post, one of the specialties of KPost Company is waterproofing commercial buildings. This will result in making the building water and air-tight and it improves its energy efficiency. The waterproofing also helps to accomplish another valuable improvement: improving the air-quality of the building.

“Property managers know how toxic mold and mildew are for a commercial building,” Scott noted. “These conditions can dramatically impact the air-quality of the structure and result in diseases being spread among the people who work there. They can also result in costly clean-ups.”

“Waterproofing the building prevents moisture – either from leaky windows or condensation resulting from a combination of cold and warm air – from accumulating,” he said. “When the building is water and air-tight, the air-quality will be improved and the building’s inhabitants will be more comfortable and safer from contagious disease.”

Although the new reflective roof will reduce thermal impact to a building, properly waterproofing the structure will make it air-tight and reduce the cost of energy.

Savvy commercial property managers are always looking for ways to increase the return on investment of their properties and while nothing can be done about the North Texas weather, the experts at KPost Company are here to help in that process. If you would like more information on improving energy efficiency and waterproofing your building, contact us.

FAQs

SRI combines how much sunlight a surface reflects with how efficiently it releases the heat it does absorb, expressed on a scale where a standard black surface sits near zero and a clean white surface sits near 100. Green building programs and some energy codes set minimum SRI values for low-slope roofs, commonly in the high 70s for initial value and lower for the aged value after three years. Ask for both numbers, since the aged figure is what the roof actually delivers. Our waterproof coating services include reflective systems where the reflectance number is part of the specification.

Commercial energy efficiency incentive programs are run by the utilities in this market, and roofing measures sometimes qualify alongside lighting and HVAC upgrades. Programs change annually, have budget caps, and usually require pre-approval before work begins, which is the part that trips owners up. Check with your provider during design rather than after the project, because a rebate applied for retroactively is generally a rebate you do not get.

There is a heating penalty, and it is smaller than people assume in this climate. A reflective roof rejects some solar gain you might have wanted on a cold January day, but North Texas has a long cooling season and a short heating one, and low-slope commercial roofs are usually well insulated enough that surface color affects the interior far less than it affects the roof membrane itself. The cooling savings dominate the annual number here.

By comparing utility consumption before and after on a weather-normalized basis, which means adjusting for how hot the comparison summer actually was. Comparing raw July bills across two years measures the weather more than the roof. Ask for degree-day normalized figures, and separate the roof from any other efficiency work done in the same period, since bundling lighting and HVAC upgrades into the same window makes it impossible to attribute the result.

Roofing touches several credit areas rather than one. Heat island reduction credits look at SRI values across the roof surface. Materials and resources credits consider recycled content, regional sourcing, and construction waste diverted from landfill, which favors restoration over tear-off. Rainwater management credits can involve the drainage design. The requirements are specific and version dependent, so the project’s LEED consultant should confirm thresholds before materials are specified.
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