 Sunny Honolulu is Howard Wigg with Cold Green. Hawaii is the first state in the nation to declare the goal of 100% clean energy by the year 2045, which is not all that far away. What better path to take towards listening the use of electricity and becoming cleaner and cleaner in energy than to reduce the amount of electricity needed to air condition our homes and buildings? How do we do that when the sun's heat is striking the walls of our homes and buildings instead of letting it in? How about we reflect it back out? So there's just a little bit of heat coming in instead of a lot of heat pouring in to discuss this very important matter are Audrey McGarrow and Stacey Weister of the Cool Roof Rating Council. What is that? These ladies will explain it to you. So we're gonna deal with the urban heat island effect, the health benefits of cooling ourselves down and then with energy efficiency and comfort in general. So welcome Audrey, welcome Stacey. So glad to have you on board here. Thanks, Howard. Yeah, thank you, Howard. Huge pleasure, huge pleasure. Let's get right into it. We have a whole lot to discuss. And by the way, you people are the slide callers. When you want the slides to come up, you just say so. So welcome ladies and who is gonna kick us off here. Okay, well, hello everyone and thank you for joining us today. My name is Stacey Weister and I am the technical manager for the Cool Roof Rating Council or the CRC. And today I'm going to be co-presenting with my colleague, Audrey McGarrow, the CRC's project manager on the topic saving energy and beating the heat with cool exterior walls. Oh, before we get started, I just wanted to mention that the CRC is a 501C3 nonprofit organization that evaluates and labels the radiative performance of roofing and exterior wall products. We are based in Portland, Oregon and we were created in 1998 to help the end users with cool roof requirements in the state of California. So since then, many other jurisdictions have grown to rely on the CRC ratings for cool roof compliance. And last year in 2022, we launched a wall product rating program. So the CRC provides a public service through product ratings, research and education which supports the development of policies and programs centered around energy efficiency and mitigating the impacts of the urban heat island effect. Though the CRC ratings are used in the development of policies and programs, the CRC does not advocate for specific requirements or define a threshold for what is considered cool. So first, the problem, urban heat islands. In many large urban centers in the United States, heat is the leading weather related cause for human mortality, surpassing hurricanes, tornadoes, lightning and blizzards. Extreme heat can also cause heat illness and increased respiratory and cardiovascular problems which negatively impact human health and constrain the health services as well. So disruptions to key infrastructure such as power grids and water supplies can also occur due to extreme heat. Next slide. And basically let me just intervene and say we've all been reading about deaths from heat. Texas, Louisiana, possibly some other states too, this is a very real problem. Yes, it definitely is. So the negative impacts of the extreme heat are intensified by the urban heat island effect or UHI, a phenomenon in which cities are hotter than the surrounding suburban areas. Daytime temperatures in the urban areas are about one to seven degrees Fahrenheit higher than the temperatures in the outlying areas. And the nighttime temperatures are about two to five degrees Fahrenheit higher. So this occurs because the heat from the sun is retained in areas with a high concentration of buildings, parking lots and roads and a lack of trees and green space. The tall buildings that block or slow air movement along with waste, heat released by vehicles and air conditioning units also contribute to the formation of these eulogize. Next. They say let me intervene again and say that I am blessed to live in the back of Manoa Valley which is just four or five miles from downtown Honolulu but we're very tree emphatic and the temperature difference between my house and downtown Honolulu is easily eight degrees, sometimes even more than that. So that definitely applies even to cool tropical Hawaii. Yes, absolutely. Okay, so the smaller more intense heat islands also exist within cities and they can disproportionately affect low income neighborhoods and communities of color. And although air conditioning can help keep buildings safe and comfortable increased air conditioning use also releases the waste heat into the environment which increasingly already hot temperatures. So further, the other thing to consider is that not all homes and businesses are equipped with air conditioning which make heat waves especially dangerous. The extreme heat also has indirect effects including the formation of brown level ozone which is a dangerous pollutant and a key ingredient in smog and greater use of as needed power plants known as peaker plants which are large emitters of air pollution. So the increased peak power demand also contributes to the blackouts and brownouts due to the electrical grid strain. So the heat waves across the US continue to be more frequent, longer, more intense and the scientists predict that cities across the globe will be over seven degrees Fahrenheit hotter by the year 2100 due to this climate change and as such solutions to keep buildings and communities cooler are more now increasingly important. Cool walls, exterior walls is a solution. So the building envelope can play an important part in mitigating UHI effect through the use of cool surfaces such as surface materials, such as roofs, exterior walls and pavements. And cool surfaces are exterior surfaces that are made from materials that efficiently reflect the sunlight and then they emit the absorbed heat. Cool roofs have been used for decades, places including Hawaii to reduce energy use and mitigate urban heat. And cool walls are newer to the solution and has recently been gaining a lot of traction. The cool exterior walls are typically light in color or contain additives or special pigments that efficiently reflect the infrared radiation and then re-rate the absorbed heat. This allows the surface temperature to remain cooler and it reduces the building solar heat gain, which as you discussed is the amount of heat from the sun that enters the building. So this maintaining cooler indoor temperatures then would occur if less reflective exterior materials were used. And there are two basic characteristics that determine the coolness of a wall surface, which are the solar reflectance or SR and the thermally mittens or TE. And both of these properties are measured on a scale from zero to one, where one is 100% reflective or emissive. And these are the same properties that are used to evaluate cool roofs and they are measured also in accordance with consensus based standards. So when an exterior surface highly reflects the solar radiation, it lowers the surface temperature and of the wall as you see here and it reduces the building's solar heat gain. So the photos that are shown on screen right now are just an example of the difference in the surface temperature between lighter and darker surfaces. Both of these photos were taken in Portland, Oregon around 7pm last year on July 19th. And as you can see, the darker color wall was about 47 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than the light colored wall. So while we don't know the exact solar reflectance value of these coatings or the R value of the insulation or how these particular buildings are cooled, this gives a pretty good illustration of how much cooler a light surface is going to stay in the sun. So there was a 2019 study that was published by the California Energy Commission and led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of Southern California in the University of San Diego that demonstrated that the cool exterior walls are a viable mechanism for UHI mitigation, which is on par with cool roofs. And according to this study, cool exterior walls yield about 85% of the daily average air cooling achieved with cool roofs in July in Los Angeles. So the walls receive less daily solar irradiance than roofs, but they also typically have less insulation, meaning that their UHI mitigation potential is similar. So the researchers also found that cool exterior walls produce annual HVAC energy savings for both residential and non-residential buildings in US climate zones one through four and across all 16 of California's climate zones. So climate zone one through four include the southern half of the continental US and Hawaii, which Hawaii falls into climate zone one. Okay, so I'm actually gonna take over the presentation from here and switch us a little bit into talking about what does a cool exterior wall look like and what does this mean for designing a building and thinking about what you want your home or building to look like on the outside. So as Stacy mentioned earlier, the simplest way to achieve cooling benefits is to select a lighter color, siding or paint or other type of material. This doesn't necessarily mean a bright white. It could be an off-white, it could be a pastel. To provide just a few kind of benchmarks, a medium to dark colored material might reflect about 25% of sunlight, which would be represented as a solar reflectance of 0.25, whereas an off-white or a dull white might be around 60%. A clean bright white wall could reflect over 80% of sunlight. So setting color aside because sometimes we have a very specific image in mind of what we want our wall to look like. There are many other options on the market that achieve a high solar reflectance while maintaining a darker or more aesthetic color. For example, the metal siding and roofing industry has been using infrared reflective pigments for decades to do exactly that. These pigments are used to create a darker visual color while still retaining a higher solar reflectance. And this technology can be used in architectural coatings. It can be used in other types of applications as well. So now I'm gonna move us into a discussion of codes, programs, and standards that promote the use of coaxterior walls. So first up, there in Hawaii, the Hawaii State Building Energy Code based on the 2018 International Energy Conservation Code with state adopted amendments contains provisions for coaxterior walls. So there in Hawaii, the code has an installation trade-off and compliance credit for one point for the installation of exterior wall materials with a visible light reflectance of 0.64 or higher on a newly constructed tropical home. Now this requirement is actually in the process of being updated. So that's gonna possibly change a bit in the future. But as of now, that's what the current requirement is. So in addition to the Hawaii Energy Code, several model codes and standards also include provisions for coaxterior wall applications. These include ASHRAE standard 90.1 as well as some of the other examples you can see on screen. So in ASHRAE 90.1, there are prescriptive solar reflectance wall, solar reflective wall requirements for climate zones zero, which doesn't actually apply to any of the United States, including Hawaii. However, the standard also offers a small compliance credit in climate zones one and above. Newly constructed buildings that use exterior wall materials with a measured solar reflectance greater than 0.25 can earn that compliance credit. If we have time later and there's interest, I can go into more detail about some of these other codes and standards, but for now I'm going to move us along to green building certifications. Yeah. So the lead rating system, which is a very common green building certification program offers a pilot credit for heat island mitigation with cool walls. Lead projects can earn this credit by surfacing at least 60% of a building's gross exterior wall area with a material that has an initial or in other words, unweathered solar reflectance of at least 0.6 and an initial TE of at least 0.75. Just to point out, there are a lot of lead buildings in Hawaii and most of the government buildings city and state now require lead certification. Right. So in addition to lead, which again is the most well-known and common, the green globes certification program also contains cool exterior wall provisions. This program is based on ANSI GBI 01 and that standard contains requirements for cool exterior walls in climate zones other than climate zones six through eight. So now I'm going to move us along again to talk a little bit about compliance and educational resources that are available to the public on this topic. So first and foremost, the Cool Roof Rating Council maintains a publicly available database of exterior wall products with radiative property ratings. This database is completely free to use and accessible online. And it's there to help end users, including architects, specifiers and designers, facility managers and home and building owners to search for and identify products that they can use to comply with whichever code, standard or certification program they're looking to participate in. Published ratings are obtained in accordance with the CRC wall rating program requirements which were developed with input from a wide array of stakeholders, industry members, subject matter experts in order to craft a really high quality program. These values that are available online are obtained following sort of strict protocols and all the products are tested by accredited independent testing laboratories to ensure that all of the data is credible and scientifically sound. Some manufacturer test labs can also participate but they have to meet strict requirements and comply with numerous quality assurance protocols set up by the CRC. So once products are tested by one of these approved labs they also have to undergo three years of natural weathering and then the products are tested again by a laboratory to see how those products perform over time. And that's really important for ensuring that we understand how a product is going to perform once it's actually installed on the wall and get the most accurate data as possible. So in addition to the rated products directory the CRC also maintains databases of code standards and programs that relate to both cool exterior walls and cool roofs. These databases are a great place to go if you want to find out what kind of credit you might be able to earn by installing a full exterior wall or what might apply in the area that you live for example in Hawaii. Similar databases are also available for cool roofs related to rebate programs. So I know we're talking about walls today but if you were to look up your jurisdiction here in Hawaii you may find a cool roof rebate that's available to help homeowners save some cash when they are looking to cool down their home using a cool roof. Lastly I just wanna call out a few other educational resources that are made available through the CRC. We recently published a one pager about heat resilience and heat vulnerable communities. This is a tool for people in the media profession for reporting about extreme heat and heat waves and things that we can do in the built environment to reduce the risk of fatalities due to heat. So this is an excellent resource for anyone who is in the media reporting about this issue or really anyone who just wants to learn more using a simple document like this. On our website coolroofs.org we also offer a variety of other publications related to the urban heat island effect or cool roofs and walls. Maybe you're a homeowner that wants to learn more we have a resource specific to you or policy makers that might have maintain a code program or standard that already has requirements and you're interested in referencing the CRC's standard or our program in that existing requirement. We also have a lot of resources targeted towards policy makers and program developers. Lastly, we currently have a AIA and IBEC continuing education credit course that's available on IBEC's website. This was a presentation that two CRC staff members gave at the IBEC convention earlier this year. And that presentation is recorded and available for purchase. So if you're a professional that is seeking continue education credit for either of those organizations feel free to contact us. If you go to coolroofs.org you can find our contact info and we can point you to that course. I think we have a few minutes left. I don't know, Howard, if there's anything specific you'd like us to go into a little bit more detail on. Thank you for asking. There are some people who say cool coatings both roofs and walls are all great but the light colors cost more. Do you have a response to that? I would have to refer to the CRC website. I believe in one of our FAQs we have some information about what the average premium would be. What I can say is that, yes I believe there is a slight difference but that over time your energy savings should provide a pretty good return on investment. And next question. There is one state that has in its current code a credit for cool walls. And I think you mentioned that state before it starts with an H. That would be Hawaii. Yeah, and we are working with industry and a whole bunch of other folks to get a much stronger cool wall reflectance code in place. And that may be an eternal optimist maybe in a few months cool wall coding or code coming near to you. And then finally, we have arranged with you folks to have one of your colleagues actually come down. No, two of your colleagues, including Stacy may be coming actually physically down to Hawaii. And I'm envisioning us renting the AIA headquarters downtown and maybe having a full morning presentation on probably cool rules and cool walls and then we will follow that up in the afternoon by visiting some major architectural firms, major engineering firms to meet one-on-one with those people. If you're interested in a one-on-one meeting with these folks and this will be in the next few months please notify me and I'll pass your word on. And those are my only comments. Have any last minute words of wisdom here? I just wanna invite anyone that's interested in learning more. Howard mentioned maybe the potential for a in-person event at some point but in the meantime, please don't hesitate to visit our website, poolroofs.org, a lot of great resources and information to contact staff. We're happy to talk one-on-one with anyone who wants to learn more. Absolutely. And I can justify that these people are very, very user friendly. You ask them a question, they come back with the answer and usually it's very quickly. Well, thank you. Well, thank you, Howard. And thank you so much for having us on. I'm really excited to be here. My pleasure. So again, this is Howard Wigg. Think, check, Hawaii. See you next time. And Audrey and Stacy, thank you so much for broadcasting all the way from Portland, Oregon. I know I'll be seeing you in the near future. Thank you. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think, Tech, Hawaii. If you like what we do, please click the like and subscribe button on YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Check out our website, thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.