Henry's Tropicool, and how I learned to dislike it...

[EastCoastCB]

Wow. I am reading myself bananas on this subject. I am going to do a comparison test.

QUESTION:
Setting aside elastomeric,...just PLAIN WHITE PAINT,...do any of you have a recommendation? Brand? Type?

Depends.
If you're cheap Rustoleum or the equivalent. Or auto grade.

 

[EastCoastCB]

I highly doubt a coating will take my house from 100F to 13F.

 

[kazetsukai]

What I'll say is:

• We put tropicool on our roof
• It started to look like crap after a short period of time
• It dropped the temps inside very significantly. From metal surfaces too hot to touch and working in an oven, to cool to the touch in full sun.
• No "placebo", to suggest that even is stupid, it works to this day
• I would not do it again without painting the roof white proper first, and if I didn't see results I would use it again over the white roof. But that's because I don't give a hoot what my roof looks like.

 

[cadillackid]

ive not tried tropicool but i do have 2 busses with plain white roofs and one with a light beige roof.. and its all the difference in the world from the beige to the white..
the difference between the interior ceiling being hot to the touch and just barely warm

 

[Native-SKO]

Wow. I am reading myself bananas on this subject. I am going to do a comparison test.

Before you perform your own tests (which I would urge you to do and post the results here), you may want to read the thread where a member, Jatzy, did just that.

https://www.skoolie.net/forums/f13/insulating-paint-beads-feedback-from-real-people-please-9291.html

Setting aside elastomeric,...

Do not be too quick to dismiss elastomeric coatings. The coating the OP referred to is a 100% silicone roof coating. Avoid silicone. It absorbs water and promotes rust. It can not be painted without special treatment.

Elastomeric coatings (such as Ames Extreme-Stretch Elastometic coating is a rubberized coating. It can be painted. So if the color of the product is not quite what matches your color palette for your bus, paint it.

QUESTION:
...just PLAIN WHITE PAINT,...do any of you have a recommendation? Brand? Type?

Use the same type of paint as you would use on the rest of your bus.

 

[JackE]

I'm gonna stick with the tattoo analogy.

Its not a good one at all. They do hurt. I have plenty.

It's a great analogy. I don't have any so what good does it do for me to tell someone how much it hurts. I really have no idea. If you don't have it on your roof, you can't give an opinion of experience on how bad it is.

What I'll say is:

• We put tropicool on our roof
• It started to look like crap after a short period of time
• It dropped the temps inside very significantly. From metal surfaces too hot to touch and working in an oven, to cool to the touch in full sun.
• No "placebo", to suggest that even is stupid, it works to this day
• I would not do it again without painting the roof white proper first, and if I didn't see results I would use it again over the white roof. But that's because I don't give a hoot what my roof looks like.

This is the kind of advice I love! Because of your experience, I plan on using only white paint. If it still seems too hot, I'll put the elastic paint on top of it. I don't really care what the roof looks like either, I'm not tall enough to see it.

 

[smithcredibus]

I also have Tropicool on my roof. Roof raiser put BlackJack Elastokool 1000 on it and I meant to put Solar-flex but my wife surprised me with Tropicool applied by a friendly friend for my bday.
Now I’ve finished sanding the sides below the roofline and left numerous paint-dust-sand handprints on the Tropicool.
Adhesion seems great. It’s very thick, I used 4.75gal for two coats.
But the staining I was hoping would no be an issue bc”nothing sticks to silicone,” meanwhile these handprints beg to differ.

I will also try plain white paint before silicon-ing the roof of my next bus.
But this bus will always have silicone on its roof, I guess.

 

[PitskyWitbulls]

Wow. I am reading myself bananas on this subject. I am going to do a comparison test.

QUESTION:
Setting aside elastomeric,...just PLAIN WHITE PAINT,...do any of you have a recommendation? Brand? Type?

I'm not trying to start fights but don't listen to [Mod Edit]. I looked through all of the posts on this forum about roof coats and paint. Him and one other guy poop on everyone who says roof coats make a difference. I appreciate your props but look at the research and make your own decision. Paint alone will make the roof look pretty. A coating as shown by research will decrease roof temperature which SHOULD translate to decreased temps inside. Look through the threads. All the links are in this thread or at least search terms to find skoolie owners results (ALL POSITIVE).

Take care and I always hope the best

 

[EastCoastCB]

[Mod Edit] I looked through all of the posts on this forum about roof coats and paint. Him and one other guy poop on everyone who says roof coats make a difference. I appreciate your props but look at the research and make your own decision. Paint alone will make the roof look pretty. A coating as shown by research will decrease roof temperature which SHOULD translate to decreased temps inside. Look through the threads. All the links are in this thread or at least search terms to find skoolie owners results (ALL POSITIVE).

Take care and I always hope the best

[Mod Edit] Unless one wants a shite bandaid coating that can't be painted over and collects dust and dirt.
Shay McQuaid didn't listen and at least he came on here to admit he was wrong. Not too many do that. Like the kids I watched painting their entire bus with roof paint over here in my bus yard one day. Looks like total crap.

If all the user reports of this product were as positive as you allude why do we have this very thread outlining one's disappointment in the product???

 

[PitskyWitbulls]

[Mod Edit] Unless one wants a shite bandaid coating that can't be painted over and collects dust and dirt.
Shay McQuaid didn't listen and at least he came on here to admit he was wrong. Not too many do that. Like the kids I watched painting their entire bus with roof paint over here in my bus yard one day. Looks like total crap.

If all the user reports of this product were as positive as you allude why do we have this very thread outlining one's disappointment in the product???

So you're saying everyone should listen to you, don't do their own research, or make their own decisions.
[Mod Edit]

 

[cadillackid]

theres research on here to be found, tjhere is a few members here who have painted their roofs with elastometric paint and had good results. , i think the issue with the tropicool product referenced here is that it didnt stay clean and isnt a nice smooth surface to be easily washed back to white..



color DOES have a lot to do with heat gain, however if elastometric paint beads also create mini air spaced "bubbles" in the coating then that very much can increase the insukating properties. . since a lot of what insulation does is trap heat in air spaces over layers


I casnt find the thread now but I thought someone did a test where they painted sections of their roof with white paint and then elastometric and found that the coatings did make some difference,



agaun being able to maintain it is also important.. if a product yellows or traps mold/ dirt and becomes darker its definitely not going to work anything close to what it did when first applied..



there is something to be said for the ease of maintenance of smooth glossy white paint, where you can easily simple-green and hose it clean back to bright white.



-Christopher

 

[PitskyWitbulls]

I highly doubt a coating will take my house from 100F to 13F.

Again you fail to follow logic or context clues. No one said the internal temps dropped 87° (I'm surprised you could do the math) SURFACE TEMPS. That means that the surface of the roof (a roof is the thing that sits on top of houses, buildings, and yes! even buses) dropped in temperature.

 

[PitskyWitbulls]

No paint of any kind will provide any insulating value. All that paint can do as far as temperature control is concerned is to reflect sunlight, which would otherwise raise the temperature of the bus well above the ambient temperature. Any white paint will serve that purpose.

For temperature control when you're not in direct sunlight, you need to insulate inside with spray foam, XPS, rock wool etc., and the effectiveness of this insulation will be a function of how thick it is. There is no magical substance in the world that can be applied in a layer as thin as paint that will provide a significant R-value; even aerogel, an absurdly expensive high-tech insulating material, only has an R-value of 10 per inch, so a 1/32" thick layer (about the recommended thickness for elastomeric paint) would provide an R-value of 0.3125.

Roof coatings don't have an R value.

 

[PitskyWitbulls]

theres research on here to be found, tjhere is a few members here who have painted their roofs with elastometric paint and had good results. , i think the issue with the tropicool product referenced here is that it didnt stay clean and isnt a nice smooth surface to be easily washed back to white..



color DOES have a lot to do with heat gain, however if elastometric paint beads also create mini air spaced "bubbles" in the coating then that very much can increase the insukating properties. . since a lot of what insulation does is trap heat in air spaces over layers


I casnt find the thread now but I thought someone did a test where they painted sections of their roof with white paint and then elastometric and found that the coatings did make some difference,



agaun being able to maintain it is also important.. if a product yellows or traps mold/ dirt and becomes darker its definitely not going to work anything close to what it did when first applied..



there is something to be said for the ease of maintenance of smooth glossy white paint, where you can easily simple-green and hose it clean back to bright white.



-Christopher

This is the link to the "test" you were referring to:


I think how smooth the coating is will depend on how you apply it. If you rent a sprayer it will be smoother. If you use a roller, it will be textured.

 

[EastCoastCB]

So you're saying everyone should listen to you, don't do their own research, or make their own decisions.

You've just shown yourself to be the troll you really are.

 

[kazetsukai]

You've been [Mod Edit] throughout this thread.

He has an opinion on Tropicool. I did my roof with it because ROLL WITH IT and friends on YouTube did, and I had bigger fish to fry than doing research. To people that do know the drawbacks, this can be frustrating.

[Mod Edit] anyone who disagrees with you.

Nah, he's pretty chill most of the time, and one of the top contributors.

[Mod Edit]

This is the opposite description to that of his character

[Mod Edit]

I think others have other opinions on TC. Like the $1000 poo buckets, investing in something doesn't just involve money, it involves choice, and people feel compelled to defend their choices. I'd say you're wrong about it being ineffective at lowering temperatures, right about it looking like heck after a short period.


Nuance, folks. No need to get personal and on the offensive.

 

[Polarweasel]

Reminder... It's OK to disagree with others BUT name calling, ridicule and trolling are not allowed.

Here is a link to our site rules: https://www.skoolie.net/forums/misc.php?do=sknetwork&page=rules

We all agreed to them when we joined.

 

[TomA-SKO]

No paint of any kind will provide any insulating value. All that paint can do as far as temperature control is concerned is to reflect sunlight

Not quite...

There's actually a lot going on when a surface is reflecting some and absorbing some UV energy (light,) converting the absorbed energy to heat, and radiating that out as infrared energy. I won't explain (because I call my uncle the retired chemistry teacher to sort me out on such things when I need help, and so that some engineer who took a class on it 30 years ago won't skool me on everything wrong with my post,) but black body radiation is is a thing, and why flat black is the best performing surface for frying pans, heat sinks and wood stoves. Nuff said...

For this discussion, a roof coating's thickness, composition and gloss level would very likely impact performance (the coating's ability reflect light (UV,) to radiate heat back off the surface (emissivity) and also to keep that heat from being transmitted into the roof skin on which its applied,} even with all choices of coatings being the same bright white.

Theoretically, Tropicool having a flat finish and higher emissivity than paint, combined with an order of magnitude thicker application of a material that could keep the surface heat away from the roof skin better, should easily outperform even a glossier, thinner, more UV reflective white paint film. ALL engineering hits compromises in the field, though. If Tropicool quickly loads up with dirt and its emissivity and UV reflectivity are degraded, its theoretical performance could indeed be overwhelmed by typical field conditions.

Its a hugely interesting subject, and worthy of a Master's Thesis like this one here:

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a598855.pdf

Here's a much more practical paper from a thermal imaging company on how to actually improve emissivity cheaply:

https://www.flir.com.au/discover/rd-science/use-low-cost-materials-to-increase-target-emissivity/

Fascinating, but so what? Its all about compromise on the road. Most of us would rather plumb the coach than go down a rabbit hole like this one, which is why taking the experience and advice of a fellow builder in reaching your own solution is a very efficient way to make decisions.

For myself, nearly the entire roof of my build will be covered with solar panels, (set 6" off the surface for a number of reasons) so my priorities are heat rejection, to be sure, but mostly to make certain that area stays clean under the panels and doesn't ever leak, which would be a severe PITA to correct. Haven't decided what to do yet...

Everyone does what works for them for tons of reasons; or it doesn't and then they redo it with a better compromise for them. We here have much more in common than what we so easily disagree about online. Try to remember that, everybody.

Over & Out...

 

[EastCoastCB]

Funny how shills for conversion companies come in and start arguments.

 

[kazetsukai]

Funny how shills for conversion companies come in and start arguments.

Just remember that it takes two to tango.