Article Courtesy of The Orlando Sentinel

By Mary Shanklin

Published July 6, 2010

Zoom in on the Google Maps satellite view of University Acres in east Orlando, and the rooftops along Charlie Piper's cul-de-sac look like dark-gray, asphalt stepping stones baking in the sun.

Piper wants to change that. She wants to replace her dark roof with a white one that better reflects the sun and conserves energy inside her home.

Her homeowners association, though, disapproves.

White shingles would not be in keeping with the more conservative colors that are standard in the community, which consists of about 100 suburban-style houses built in the mid-1990s.

"The white shingles will definitely stand out and deviate with the existing community roof conformity and harmony of external design," Mario Maceira, head of the subdivision's architectural review board, said in a recent letter to Piper.

While the subdivision's architecture board recommended against the more energy-efficient roof, Piper said she will take her case to the homeowners association's full board in late July.

"I told the committee that I was really disappointed. … They are volunteers, and this is not fun for them. I don't want to have a confrontation. These are my neighbors," said Piper, who moved there with her husband four years ago. "I talked with my husband and said we can do a light tan or a light gray and it will be done. … But part of me knows that the right thing isn't the easy thing. He had the same feeling."

Danny Parker, principal research scientist for the Florida Solar Energy Center in Cocoa, said he hears about once a month from homeowners seeking guidance in dealing with their community associations about roof colors and other energy-conservation tools.

"The associations' perspective is that it's their job to be the sheriff who says things aren't going to look different," Parker said. "But if things aren't going to be different, then you're going to have the same old electric bills that you did before, and those bills are high."

Parker's monthly bill — $6.98 for the connection. He lives in a neighborhood without a homeowners association, and his house has a white roof, solar tiles and other conservation tools that produce or save electricity.

"I produce more than I use," he said.

He estimated that Piper would save $150 to $200 a year with a white roof, based on a utility bill that she said can run $400 a month to power the 3,000-square-foot house. The light color, Parker said, is crucial because attics with dark roofs hit 135 degrees on a hot day, while attics with a white roof will rise only to about 100 degrees. That's significant, he added, because air ducts in most Florida homes run through the attic, so the cooling system has to work even harder than if the ducts were in a crawl space under the house.

When Piper appeals to the full homeowners-association board, she plans to bring with her a Florida law passed several years ago to prevent such boards from denying homeowners permission to install solar-energy collectors and other such devices. Whether that covers roof color is uncertain.

She said she understands that her neighbors denied the request because no one else has a white roof.

But "until you get one white roof, you can't have two. Until you have two, you wouldn't have three," Piper said. "If we did all the roofs at one time, with $100 of savings a year on each one and 100 homes, that's $10,000 … for electricity that is just wasted now."