Tips To Keep Your Attic Cool
By Marc Richmond-Powers, City of Austin Green Building Program

Picture this: It's a hot and humid Austin summer day. You head for the indoors and some relief from your trusty air conditioning (A/C) system. Three hours later, you're slightly cooler, but you're wondering why your A/C unit hasn't shut off yet.

Here's why: all day long, Solar radiation has been heating up your home through the windows, walls, doors and especially the roof. Your Attic temperature can easily reach over 140 degrees. That heat up there is working its way through your meager attic insulation into your home and through the A/C ductwork, located in your attic, into your cooling system.

Your A/C system has to fight that added heat to change all that hot air in your home into cool air. You can install solar screens for the windows, porches around the house for shade, and plant trees around the home, but what do you do about the roof which accounts for a third of all the heat build-up of your house?
Here are a few options: "