Gulf Construction Online - Artic launches energy-saving tiles

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Artic launches energy-saving tiles

01 April 2010

ARABIAN Tiles Industries Company (Artic), a leading Saudi manufacturer of glassfibre-reinforced concrete (GRC), tiles and blocks, has developed a new product that will provide customers with effective energy-saving solutions and environment-friendly benefits.

The company’s successful research initiatives have resulted in the development of Eco Tiles that have the capacity to reflect 85 per cent of the suns rays. The face layer of the tile containing environment-friendly compounds, provide sun reflectance and thermal emission qualities that leave the roof cool most of time, according to a spokesman for the company.
“A cool roof can substantially reduce the cooling load of the building, providing several direct benefits to the building owner and occupants such as increased occupant comfort, especially during the hot summer months and reduced air-conditioning requirements, resulting in energy savings that may typically range from 10 to 30 per cent,” the spokesman says.
“This apart, cool roofs reduce the stress on the energy grid during the summer and help avoid shortages.”
He continues: “‘Coolness’ is measured by two properties – solar reflectance and thermal emission – which are in turn determined in the range of 0 to 1 (higher the value, the cooler the roof). Artic’s Eco Tile’s coolness rating stands at 0.85 SRI (solar reflective index), a count validated by international laboratories that are approved by the Cool Roof Rating Council (CRRC).
“Cool roofs directly reduce greenhouse gas emissions by conserving electricity consumed in air-conditioning, therefore reducing the carbon dioxide (CO2) emission from power plants. Independently, these roofs also cool the world simply by sending the sun’s energy as light, back into the atmosphere, thereby mitigating global warming. A Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory study found that reflective roofing worldwide will produce a global cooling effect equivalent to offsetting 24 gigatons of carbon dioxide over the lifetime of the roofs.
“Cities can be 2 deg F to 8 deg F warmer than surrounding areas due to dark building materials, including roofs, which absorb the sun’s light energy as heat during the day and release it at night. This phenomenon does not allow the air to cool down at night and results in higher temperatures being maintained longer.
“By immediately reflecting solar radiation back into the atmosphere and re-emitting some portion of it as infrared light, cool roofs result in cooler air temperatures for the surrounding urban environment during hot summer months.”