Recently built an extension on the house and the tiles on it are obviously newer and brighter than the originals, eight years difference in age, so the question is,

Has anyone in the Pattaya area had roof tiles painted or resurfaced, maybe even changed color in doing so ?

Having thoughts about a lighter color, which 'may' have some effect on heat reflection.

I remember last years talking to a mate about why cricketers wear white clothes.

Well its obvious, we all know that answer......but when I checked on the net, there was no evidence to suggest that a few hours cricket playing in white would keep them cooler than playing in black.

After your post I checked again regarding building materials. The suggestion was that in hot climes if you paint your house with white paint and have white roof tiles then you can expect to save around 10 to 15% on your air con costs.

There is of course a science behind the colour white and its low absorption of the other colours of the spectrum making up sunlight and black absorbing all of them, but with a grade c in physics and chemistry others can explain better.

What I did glean is, there is one thing better than white.....a mirror but on a roof no!

The next best thing though is a solar reflective...aluminium foil faced fleece under the tiles. As your second row of defence. This is imperative here, and there are many threads on foil sheets,metal sheets, read them.

For tiles, we have white concrete tiles, concrete is a great hear absorbing material and to go with white/cement grey that's light reflective also.

I looked at our dirty white grey roof on google maps and it shows as a white rectangle, that's satisfying that it just shines in the sun.

I was reading about the roof tiles they go for on the mediterranean areas, pre dominantly the terracotta pantiles/ half barrel style. They are set up so they create tunnels up the roof for the wind to aerate and cool the roof, but the barrel half pipe tiles create a sun/shade effect on every tile at every hour of the day.....so effectively only half your roof is in the sun at any one time.

Just some good for thought.

Personally painting tiles does them a dis service. It will crack and flake in weeks. There was a practice in the uk at one time to turn the old slates to match the new, but you cannot do this with tiles with hanging lugs unfortunately.

My advice, fit some insulation reflective foil and wait a year for the new tiles to blend in with the existing.....at the same time it may be possible for someone to jetwash the old ones to mitigate the difference.

Here in my large Bangkok moobaan I've seen quite a few houses which had their roof tiles repainted...they were repainted the same color as the original color, either red, green or brown, but it sure does make the roof look brand new. And the repainting seems to last as several of the house roofs were repainted several years ago and still look almost new. Just go with quality cement fiber roof paint specifically designed for roof tiles. Can't speak to the heat reduction effect of using a different/lighter color and how good it might look.

We repainted the roof on one of our very old houses about 12 years ago (using specialist roof paint), it lasted about 6 years before it needed touching up again. It works, but doesn't last the same as the factory finish.

Thanks for the replies.