想省錢?先幫你的房頂降溫吧!

Keeping roofs cooler to cut energy costs

想省錢？先幫你的房頂降溫吧！

The roof of a house can get pretty hot in the summer. Even if there is an insulated attic below, some of that heat can work its way into the living space. That can make air conditioners work harder and pump up electricity bills. But a thin, paint-like coating could help keep roofs cooler, a teen researcher finds. And in urban areas, widespread use of her new roofing treatment might even cut the formation of lung-irritating ozone on hot days.

夏季炙熱的太陽烤的屋頂奇熱無比，儘管有有隔熱作用的閣樓，但還是抵擋不住驕陽的高溫穿透屋頂進入房間內。這可累壞了家裏的空調，甚至還會有額外的電費賬單等着支付呢。但一位青年研究員發現一層薄薄的塗料就能幫助房頂涼爽下來。在市區內，儘管是很熱的天氣，使用她的新式屋頂隔熱法即使在很熱的天氣下也能減少會對肺造成刺激的臭氧的形成。

Shingles come in many colors, but dark ones are especially popular, says Jesseca Kusher. The 18-year old attends Spartanburg Day School in South Carolina. Like most dark objects, shingles absorb a lot of heat from sunlight. In the summer sun, they can easily reach 73.5° Celsius (164° Fahrenheit), she notes. If those shingles reflected more sunlight, they'd stay cooler. And that could help cut down on home cooling bills. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, air conditioning consumes about 5 percent of all the energy used in the United States. Cooling buildings costs the nation about $11 billion each year.

據一位來自南加利福尼亞州斯帕坦堡走讀學校的18歲學生Jesseca Kusher介紹，這種特殊的屋頂由多種顏色組成，黑色尤爲受歡迎。像多數黑色物體一樣，這種材質的屋頂吸收陽光熱量。經過夏天太陽的照射後，他們能很容易的達到73.5攝氏度（164華氏攝氏度），如果這種屋頂能返射更多的光，那麼他們能保持更加涼爽的狀態。家用降溫設備產生的額外費用也會因此減少。根據環境保護署提供的數據，美國每年在降溫設備上就會消耗約110億美元。

Jesseca Kusher, an 18-year-old researcher from Spartansburg, S.C., invented a paint-on coating for roofing shingles. Her formula could reduce a home's cooling costs and possibly cut ozone pollution in urban areas.

Jesseca Kusher，一名來自斯帕坦堡走讀學校的18歲學生髮明瞭一種房頂隔熱塗層。她的發明能減少一個家庭因製冷而產生的額外費用並同時降低市區的臭氧層污染物。

So Jesseca looked into ways to make shingles reflect more light. She mixed tiny particles - a powder - made from any of several different substances into a clear paint-like coating. One coating got graphite, the same material in pencil lead. Another recipe included gypsum. That's a soft mineral often found in the drywall乾式牆 used in construction. She even tried adding mica. That's a mineral used in some lampshades. It readily breaks into small, glittering flakes.

Jesseca也嘗試過尋找能讓這種屋頂反射更多光的方法。她把由任意幾種不同物質組合而成的粉狀物，也就是微小粒子混合成一種類似塗料的東西。這種塗層包括黑鉛（和鉛筆芯一樣的材料），另一種成分是石膏，這是一種常見於乾式牆建築中的軟礦物材料，甚至她還嘗試着加上雲母，一種很容易被搗碎成閃亮的晶片的礦物。

Each of these powders came in several colors. In each of Jesseca's test recipes, her reflective powder accounted for 40 percent of the weight of the final mixture. She also prepared some of the paint-like coatings with no additive. That would let her judge whether a powder - versus the transparent goop it was added to - affected a shingle's reflectivity, she explains.

每一種粉狀物都會放入幾種不同的顏色，在jesseca的成分實驗中，能進行反射的粉佔最終混合物重量的40%。同時她也準備了無任何添加的類似塗料的東西，這樣她能判斷單純的粉狀物以及添加了透明物質的粉狀物是否會對屋頂光的反射產生影響。