THE EPDM ROOFING ASSOCIATION, Bethesda, Md., has requested that the Atlanta-based American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers Inc. change the list of climate zones in which buildings are required to have a Solar Reflectivity Index of 0.78 in its proposed Standard 189P, “Standard for the Design of High-Performance Green Buildings Except for Low-Rise Residential Buildings.” SRI is a value incorporating solar reflectance and emittance to represent a material’s temperature in the sun. It quantifies how hot a surface would get relative to standard black and white surfaces. The current standard requires an SRI of 0.78 on all building projects except in Climate Zones 7 and 8. Zone 7 covers the northernmost regions of Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin; Zone 8 includes parts of Alaska. ERA recommended that ASHRAE add
Climate Zones 5 and 6, covering most of the northern regions of the U.S., to the list of zones receiving exemptions. Michael DuCharme, director of product marketing for Carlisle SynTec, Carlisle, Pa., and chairman of
ERA’s board of directors says, “In submitting our comments, we simply want to ensure that ASHRAE considers data based on independent government analysis in creating these standards to ensure building owners and contractors maintain flexibility in material selection while striving to achieve sustainability and energy efficiency.”