Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of school buses that are yellow everywhere except for the roof.? I was perplexed as to why.? According to this nearly 20-year-old New York Times article, the reason is that white tops are more reflective, lowering the temperature inside the bus by an average of 10 degrees during the summer.? The source of that statistic is a very non-scientific sounding North Carolina pilot study.
This 10-degree difference in temperature sounds preposterous to me.?? Yellow and white just don’t seem very different in terms of heat absorption.
Are there any scientists among our blog readers who can do some back of the envelope calculations to determine whether white-roofed buses would actually be noticeably cooler?
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One of Toyota’s (maybe Ford’s) new SUV vehicles has a white roof.
Houses that have white roofs are cooler than those that do not.
So it does seem to follow….
It seems to me that another way to handle this would be to put in that attic foil stuff in the tops of buses, to even further reflect any absorbed heat (supposedly it “reflects” back around 97% of RADIATED heat–or cool, for that matter).
As for the strobe light, it is not because buses aren’t big, but because fog can obscure a bus (many run during early morning darkness). A strobe light, even if it provides just an additional 1% of safety, seems a small thing to install when you’re talking about kids.
It’s not just paint. Google “bus kote.”
“Bus-Kote is a bight white, acrylic elastomeric, insulating ceramic, waterproof coating designed specifically for Buses and recreational vehicles. This high build rubber like coating waterproofs, insulates, soundproofs, beautifies and protects with a ceramic shield that expands and contracts with varying hot and cold temperatures plus resists thermal shock. Bus-Kote offers superior mildew resistance and ultraviolet ray reflectivity.
Originally designed as an insulating, reflective coating for school districts to use on the roofs of school buses to lower the interior bus temperature. This energy saving coating will reduce interior temperatures when hot and make interior temperatures more constant when cold due to ceramic insulation.”
An additional thought….
We know that some colors can create a greater degree of stress/agitation, while some colors are calming. It seems that the INSIDE of buses ought to be the most appropriate color.
When the bus is taking the football team somewhere, it ought to be blood red, I suppose. While if it’s taking them on a long trip, it ought to be pastel, so that the bus driver survives the trip.
So during winter, they’ll use more energy to keep the buses warm?
Is it more important for officials to lower the temperature in the bus or to be perceived as caring about the children who are on that bus? Also, what separates bus manufacturers, if gas mileage and seating is similar, the one with the “cooler” roof may stand out (in more ways than one). Though the roof may lower the temperature in the bus, is that the question to ask or is it reflective of the officials and the bus company?
@ Makes a Ton of Sense
Unless the bus is electric powered you get the heat for free.
I was gonna say the same ting that cjc said.
The problem with the linked article is that it doesn’t go into enough detail. Its costs a couple of hundred dollars more for the white tops because its not the same type of paint as the normal yellow paint, its a more reflective type of paint, in addition to being white.