Conventional Roof Assemblies: 6-Year Field Monitoring Study Update

A long-term field monitoring study was implemented to measure the impacts of membrane
color and insulation strategy on the in-situ performance of conventional roof assemblies.
The same roof membrane cap sheet type with three different surface colors (white, grey &
black) was installed over three different conventional insulation strategies with
approximately the same R-value, creating a total of nine unique roof assemblies on the
same building. Sensors were then installed to monitor key performance indicators for the
roofs including temperature at key layers of the roofs, relative humidity within the
assemblies, and solar reflectance of the roof membranes.

This paper presents the results of this monitoring work after six years of study. In particular,
updates and further analysis are presented with respect to moisture movement and
accumulation within the assembles, insulation performance, long-term reflectivity and
soiling of the roofing membranes. Exploratory openings have been performed to confirm
results of the monitoring and collect samples for laboratory testing of the roofing materials
post-field exposure, and results will be discussed in a separate paper. The various
measurements are analysed and synthesized to allow for discussion of advantages and
disadvantages of the different membrane colors and insulation arrangements.