So, I attmepted part one of my experiment today,

Fail. The weather was all over the place sunny, rainy, sunny, rainy.

But, when it was sunny it was easy to tell, just by feeling, that some of the colours were absorbing the heat a lot faster than the others.

I've also had an idea: When I heat up the steel next time, I will time how long it takes for each colour to return to orginal temperature. Hopefully this will eliminate this problem.

I got my steel samples!! I a lot more than I hoped for which is great.

With the help of colourbond steel centre, I've listed and given a brief description of each colour. But first, here's some basic need to know things about colourbond steel:
Colourbond steel has a low thermal mass, which mean it cools down fast was the sun is off it. Lightweight steel can help minimise the amount of heat radiation into the home.

Surfmist -
One of the most popular colours on the steel palette and is also one of the most thermally efficient. Lighter colours are especially good at radiating less heat during summer.

Windspray -
Windspray is mid-strength, neutral grey with a blue undertone

Shalegrey -

Light grey colour, similar to surfmist.

Sandbank -

Is a versitile shade of yellow, suitable in both summer and winter.

Jasper -

Brown/grey colour, fairly new to the colourbond steel palette, but has proven to be popular.

Bushland -

Bushland is a warm, mid grey/green hue, ideal environmental colour.

Woodland Grey -

Is a dark brown/grey colour that has been consistently popular over the years.

Ironstone -

Is a dark purple/grey colour

PROBLEM

So, I'm having trouble trying to find a way to measure the heat absorbency of steel. I've had a look around and I'm heading out today to hopefully get some steel samples and other equipment for the experiment. Anyway I'll keep you posted and let you know how its going.

Here is my climate graph. It includes minimum and maximum temperatures for Sydney and average rainfall for a year.

The idea of the graph was to help us understand which information is neccessary and which is not.

Hopefully it will help me better acknowledge what is neccessary information in my own project.

Here is the method for my experiment:

Method: Part A

1. Lay five different colour of steel out in sun.
2. Leave for 1 hour.
3. Record temperature of steel.

Method: Part B

1. Collect steel samples and cardboard.
2. Set-up steel sample at different roof pitches
3. Leave in sun for 4-6 hours
4. Record Observations and temperature
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4, 3 times, each time facing a new direction (i.e North, South, East and West)

hey there,

so here's a fun fact for you -

roof pitch is the degree of the slope of the roof

roof pitch is found by rise over run, kind of like gradient in maths. The higher the number the steeper the slope. e.g 4/12 is steeper than 2/12.

there's a picture above to help understand

anyway that's all for today

bye

hi there,

my last blog was over a month ago! sorry. ive been travelling. i have to admit though I've come across some pretty amazing roofs - the sistine Chapel, for example :D

seriously though, I have found a website that has a selection of colours used for residential steel roofing. A lot of the information is about the asthetics, but there are small bits of information relating to energy. This site will hopefully help in choosing the colours of steel Iwill use for my experiement.

http://www.colorbondcolours.com/home/residential/information/selecting-colours/tips-for-colour-selection

anyway that's all from me tonight. I just got back! about three hours ago.

be back soon.