Everything you need to know about reflective roof coatings.

The roof takes the most sun of any surface on the building. On industrial, logistics and commercial buildings, flat roofs can hit 80°C in summer and drive indoor temperatures way up.

A cooler roof lets less heat into the building. In air-conditioned spaces, energy costs fall accordingly thanks to reduced air-conditioning use. The savings depend on the building, its use and its insulation level.

The return on investment varies by building type and activity. The lower the temperature setpoint, the stronger the impact can be. Expect roughly 5 years for a large supermarket at 24°C, and 2 to 3 years for a refrigerated building at 4°C.

Solar gain through the roof stays low in winter: the sun sits lower and weaker, the days are shorter, and there’s less of it. The coating mostly blocks incoming heat in summer.

On a flat roof in a business or industrial zone, there is generally no planning constraint. However, for a building in a town center or whose roof is visible from the road, a prior declaration of works must be filed with the town hall before the project. When in doubt, check the local planning rules.

No: the Covalba cool roof is necessarily white. We work with ultra white, because whiteness is what drives the thermal performance (up to 94% of solar radiation reflected). Moving to light grey, beige, red or green loses the benefits of a cool roof. No alternative RAL shades are offered.

Solar reflectance describes a surface’s ability to reflect solar radiation, including both visible light and invisible rays. CovaTherm technology reflects 94% of solar radiation.

Thermal emissivity is a material’s ability to emit absorbed heat as thermal radiation. Covalba reflective coatings re-emit 88% of the heat they receive.

The SRI represents a roof’s ability to reject solar heat. It is calculated according to the ASTM E1980 standard, based on solar reflectance and thermal emissivity.

CovaTherm has an SRI of 119 when new and an SRI of 118 when aged.

The components contain no substance classified as a chemical of concern and present no known hazard to health or the environment.

No. The system includes a finish that reduces dirt adhesion and moss growth. An annual check and a water rinse if needed are enough to preserve performance.

Covalba recommends a clear-water cleaning every 1 to 2 years to preserve the coating’s whiteness and solar reflection, along with an annual roof inspection.

When the CovaTherm system is installed by a qualified professional applicator, it is covered by a warranty on adhesion to the substrate. A 4,000-hour accelerated aging test shows that reflective performance is maintained.

Putting a Covalba reflective roof coating over a waterproofing system under warranty changes nothing structural and nothing about how it is used. So the waterproofing warranty stays in place.

No. Applied in two coats, a CovaTherm system weighs under 1 kg per square meter: about 700 g/m² of product on a steel deck. Existing roofs carry that load without reinforcement.

CovaTherm is primarily a thermo-reflective coating, not a primary waterproofing layer. Its continuous, thick and elastic film can, however, seal microcracks up to 2 mm and help improve overall waterproofing.

A cooler roof improves panel output during the hot season: around 10% gain for monofacial panels and, thanks to the light reflected by the white roof, 10 to 20% extra production for bifacial installations.

A runoff analysis carried out by an accredited laboratory found no traces of pollutants, including PFAS, in rainwater from a roof coated with a Covalba product.