Carissa tackled two big home improvements at once using Brighte

It was the need to replace her leaky guttering that drove Carissa and her partner to upgrade the entire roof of their Queensland home. The couple live with their two girls in an older 1970s property. They believe the guttering likely dated the original build of the property and so not surprisingly it had seen better days: “Holes in the guttering meant we were constantly dealing with flooding around the property – the back yard didn’t have enough drainage and so would often resemble a swimming pool. Our tin, or metal, roof itself was in good condition but the paint had started to deteriorate over time.”  

So, Carissa decided to tackle two big home improvements at once – completely replacing the ageing guttering and re-painting the roof. 

Her reasons for re-painting the roof quickly extended beyond cosmetic benefits to include energy efficiency – something Carissa is passionate about. Carissa puts her heightened awareness of careful energy usage down to her time living in New Zealand where she educated herself on all of those small decisions that can have a huge impact on bills. “We have electricity bills of around $300 per quarter and we keep them low by doing things like always switching off lights when a room isn’t in use, disconnecting the TV overnight at the powerpoint rather than just the remote, and I even turn off the washing machine plug when it’s not running.” 

Her drive to make smart energy usage choices explains why Carissa went the extra mile on her choice of paint for her roof. She used Solacoat – a product that would hopefully reduce their reliance on air conditioning and fans to cool their home in Summer. 

Solacoat is an innovative water-based coating that reflects a portion of the sun’s rays. Like standard paint it’s waterproof and protective yet Solacoat comes with the added benefit of reducing internal home temperatures. So, for air conditioning equipped homes, it can reduce electricity costs too.  

No wonder then that Jodie describes ‘Solarcoat as ‘an awesome product’, as she explains further: “In Summer temperatures can reach 36-37C and even 40C and up to now we’d quickly turn to our ceiling fans and air conditioning to keep our home cool. But our air conditioning system wasn’t very effective and not was it good for our power bills. So Solacoat really appealed to me – by rejecting the rays from the sun it can cool inside the home by a few degrees. Enough to make a difference on hot Summer days – and to reduce our reliance on fans and air conditioning.” 

Carissa only upgraded her roof and guttering as Winter was approaching and is yet to experience her first ‘Solacoated Summer’. So it’s too soon for her to report back on to what extent their new roof will help with cooling thing down during Summer. In the meantime Jodie is happy to report that their home has cosmetically benefitted from their roofing project: “Our roof certainly looks much better – being a grey high quality finish rather than a worn away red colour. And we no longer have to deal with flooding due to leaking guttering. Now we’re looking ahead to a cooler Solarcoated Summer.”