Rating roofs for almost 30 years

By Emma Peterson. 

Learn about the Cool Roof Rating Council and the work they do to support the implementation of reflective building products. 

In a new Roofing Road Trips® episode, Megan Ellsworth sat down with Audrey McGarrell from the Cool Roof Rating Council (CRRC). Audrey, CRRC’s communications manager, talks about who CRRC is and what they do. 

The CRRC was founded in 1998 to develop fair, accurate and credible methods for evaluating and labeling the surface radiative properties (solar reflectance and thermal emittance) of roofing products. The radiative property data were needed to support compliance with reflective roof requirements (known as cool roofing) that were being introduced in the state of California. Audrey explained, “Way back when they were getting ready to introduce new requirements in the California code; they needed a non-biased third-party entity to provide data to use to comply with the code. So that is when the CRRC was formed. It was a collaboration among industry, government officials, manufacturers, researchers, testing laboratories and many different stakeholders that came together to form the organization for that purpose.” 

From there they grew to offer resources about cool roofs around the country. These resources include their well-known directory of cool roof products. Audrey elaborated, “Our directory is a list of products that we have rated. So, manufacturers work with us to get their products rated for how reflective they are by us. And then folks like building contractors, home and building owners and many other types of stakeholders can visit our directory and find that data.” This directory is ever growing and, as of 2022, there is a separate directory of exterior wall materials in addition to roofing products!

Beyond their directories of products, CRRC works to raise awareness and education about the importance of reflective building materials. Audrey shared a bit of what this looks like, saying, “We conduct technical research or oftentimes collaborate with other organizations to do research related to our product rating programs — things like test methods, updates to test methods, making sure all of the testing and weathering that goes on behind the scenes is as up to date as possible. And then we also do education and outreach, such as exhibiting and speaking at conferences and trade shows, writing articles and more.” 

Make sure to tune in to the rest of the podcast, where Audrey shares more about their educational outreach and resources!