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Anyone ever put a sprinkler on your roof to help out your A/C on unusually hot days? Just wondering if it helps.

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6 Answers

up vote 22 down vote accepted

I think you will just waste a lot of water compared to the cooling effect that you get.

A better way to cool the roof is to change its color. A roof with a clean, smooth bright white surface can reflect about 85% of incident sunlight and emit thermal radiation with 90% efficiency. This surface will be only 9°F warmer than the outside air on a typical summer afternoon. For comparison, the surface of a standard gray roof that reflects only about 20% of incident sunlight will be 69°F warmer than the outside air. See http://coolcolors.lbl.gov/.

Some buildings in California are now required to have light-colored roofs in order to reduce energy consumption for cooling.

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I could see the light color roof reducing the temperature of the roof and so then some of the heat soaking into the living areas, reducing the AC from running as often. I'd imagine the AC unit is still going to be boiling hot as the metal will still be happily absorbing all that heat and so its cooling efficiency will still remain poor. – ManiacZX Aug 1 '10 at 19:30
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@ManiacZX, it's easy to provide shade for the air conditioner (which is probably located beside the house anyway). – Vebjorn Ljosa♦ Aug 2 '10 at 11:14
agreed, my brain injected that it was a roof mounted unit he was trying to cool, not reduce the house temperature, while reading his question (see comment under my answer). – ManiacZX Aug 2 '10 at 12:33
The effort and cost of the two just don't compare. Going up a ladder with a sprinkler and a hose, and running the water for a day vs replacing your whole roof to make it a differerent colour? The latter may be more effective but not an option for most people. – Kate Gregory Sep 5 '11 at 13:52
up vote 7 down vote

I live in south texas, last week we had a terrible heat wave, temperatures outside where in the 110F-115F range, I installed a wireless thermometer on the attic and it read 130F on the hottest days. Ac would not cut off when set at 77. Went to home depot, got a set of 3 sprinklers that you can connect in series, I had an extra 24v solenoid water valve around and connected it to the roof sprinklers, I had to make a timer that would turn the sprinklers on for 10sec every 3 min (im an industrial engineer so making one was no trouble) and wallaa! Temperature read 98F on the attic when just a few days ago it was 130F with an outside temperature of 110F. BIG HUGE difference and guess what, my ac is cycling on/off finally on the hottest days! Im now running the system only at the peak sun hours of the day, I have no water run-off cause it all evaporates.

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a pic and diagram of todays temperatures and results bit.ly/kPpTVj .BTW im using well water which is plenty available with only a sediment filter. – Jorge Jun 5 '11 at 21:59
up vote 4 down vote

Seems like it would be a bit wasteful and not that efficient.

I'd imagine being on the roof, ambient temperature is much less of an issue then the constant sun exposure just baking the unit. Like when I get in the car here in TX sometimes, ambient temperature is in the 90s but the car baking in the sun says its 110+. If it were parked in the shade, it would read the normal temperature.

So I would think focusing on blocking as much sun as possible would be the best solution.

I'm picturing some sort of open sided mini roof structure, almost like a little car port over the unit or a well ventilated little shack built up around it.

These are just random crazy ideas of my own though, never heard of this issue nor a solution for it.

EDIT
This is under the assumption the AC unit is what you are trying to cool, if it is the temperature of the roof you are wanting to reduce, I'd encourage considering @Vebjorn Ljosa's and @Jeff Widmer's answers over a water cooling solution.

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I don't think the OP said that his outside unit was on his roof -- I got the impression he was just wondering if cooling the roof itself would be helpful. That said, wherever the outside unit is, creating some shade for it it is an interesting idea that makes sense. – Mike Powell Aug 2 '10 at 7:06
@Mike Powell, you are right, I guess it doesn't say that, I guess my mind just made the leap that he wanted to basically water cool the unit. I thought having the unit up there was unusual unless we were talking about a commercial or multi-tennat building, but different areas do things differently too. If the unit isn't up there, then I say no way to the sprinkler doing anything and support @Vebjorn regarding roof color, also check on insulation, keep the hot air out and the cool air in. – ManiacZX Aug 2 '10 at 7:58
up vote 2 down vote

Plant an oak tree, wait 10-20 years, shade created, problem solved!

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Related to @Vebjorn Ljosa's answer, you could also install solar panels on your roof. Check out an organization called One Block Off the Grid (http://1bog.org/) if you are interested in putting solar panels on your own roof. 1Bog will help with getting a local contractor and depending on the state you live in, you could end up selling your energy credits back to other businesses for extra money.

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Good idea, instead of reflecting the energy away, use it! – ManiacZX Aug 2 '10 at 8:36
Why would they need my name, address, email, phone #, etc. in order to recommend a solar installer? Geeze. All they should ask for is my zipcode. I hate web sites like that. – Michael Sep 1 '11 at 22:51
up vote 1 down vote

If this is for a building with windows that open, I'd think instead about sprinklers/lawn/misters at ground level - my house has no A/C but we get a reasonable north-south breeze, and if I turn on the sprinklers on the north side of the house and open the windows, there's a noticable cooling effect.

In high desert country, it's not unusual for restaurants with outdoor seating to install mist delivery systems to cool the outdoor areas during the hot parts of the day.

Ultimately, the value of evaporative cooling is going to depend a lot on the relative humidity in your location - where the air is dry, evaporative cooling works nicely. If you are in a humid location, there's already plenty of moisture in the air, so you're not going to get much evaporation, and correspondingly not much cooling.

I have heard of people using roof-mounted sprinklers as a last line of defense in high fire danger areas - not sure how well it really works.

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Misting systems are pretty much useless where I live. Humidity is just way too high for them to be effective. Need better location info from the OP. – Brian Knoblauch Jun 6 '11 at 18:49

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