Dehradun residents beat the heat with solar reflective coatings

The Rajpur Road Enclave Welfare Society in Dehradun, is a desirable community for families. Situated with parks for play and a children-friendly atmosphere, it is a perfect pick for many with the exception of comfort and the costs for cooling in the warmer months. Homes with rooms directly beneath the terrace experienced “hot spots” even with the addition of extra A/C units which would run too long and high and consumed massive amounts of electricity. The landlord began looking for ways to resolve the issue and found OBIC Solutions, a new manufacturer in the Indian construction materials market. The existing waterproofing coating he had used in the past was not something he wanted to try again as it did not offer any benefit other than modest waterproofing. Although a new player in the market, OBIC Solutions offered a high-tech, high-performance nano-enhanced product for roof cooling that was backed by an experienced team of IIT Bombay engineers. Being produced under the “Make in India” initiative and manufactured under stringent quality controls at an ISO 9000:2015 facility made it very attractive as well. The technical attributes and local installation teams familiar with the application provided enough evidence and confidence to try this as a solution to the heat issues. OBIC Solutions deployed its own application crews for the building project. Rather than remove the existing waterproofing, it was determined that the best method for ensuring not only waterproofing protection and heat reduction was to apply the OBICCool 300C solar heat reflective coating directly over top of the existing waterproofing layer. The area to be treated was 600 sq ft and constructed of concrete and cement. The roof surface was first prepped and cleaned using thick brooms and brushes along with water. Once the surface was dry and ready, a crew of 3 applied one layer of OBICCool 100C absorption coat to help bond the topcoats to the existing waterproofing layer. The surface prep and one absorption coat took only one day to complete. After which OBICCool 300C (Solar Heat Reflective topcoats) were applied using 2 coats which took 1 day to complete as well. Once the coating was complete, the results and cooling effects were immediate. The problem rooms where the A/C units were not able to sufficiently cool the space began to run at optimum time intervals and at lower power levels and provided the necessary cooling for the rooms with ambient temperatures dropping by 4 degree Celsius. OBIC Solutions indicated that although most of their applications will decrease ambient temperature from 6 degrees to 12 degree Celsius, this particular application on top of the thick non-bonded waterproofing layer could trap some heat. However, removing the previous waterproofing system layer would be wasting the landlord’s money, so it was kept. With the roof temperature dropping from 53.2 degree Celsius to 25.6 degree Celsius, summertime for everyone in the building will now feel cooler. Some of the resident children are especially happy because their homeschool classroom is more comfortable and school time is definitely more productive. “The OBIC Solutions’ Solar Heat Reflective Coating on the roof has made all the difference. I think about all the people living in flats on floors above the ground floor or those who work in factories and warehouses where heat gets trapped and how using something like this can be so beneficial. We are cooler and thankful for our flat during the hot summer days. This is something that is needed all across India,” shared Society tenant, J.R.