Energy Efficiency Protocol for Refrigerated Trailers

The EPA doesn't care about insulating coatings. They care about reducing things that pollute the atmosphere. There isn't enough institutional intelligence to make the connection between insulating trailer roofs and reducing pollution.

Your thrust should be aimed at reducing operating costs of shipping perishable materials through hot environments. Your coating doesn't help reduce costs if it's 30° outside, it just adds weight with no benefit.

Hire a test lab to measure the reduction in energy consumption that your coating can provide, in hostile environments.

Your manufacturer is only interested in volume. Where do they sell most of their product now?

Good luck.

Hi Lynlynch and thanks for the reply. The EPA is mostly concerned with the reduction in emissions. DOE is interested in the findings for reduction in fuel consumption. The USDA is also aware of our efforts and monitoring us as the refrigerated and / or frozen food is involved in some of the trucks and they have a say so or major input in what temps the meat stays while being transported. Apperently the trailers run a computer graph tyhat outlunes the temp of the meat inside. If ir gets too warm for too long, the entire load can get refused and dumped, a major insurance claim problem so we also have insurance companies watching us now.

We are an Energy Star Cool Roof approved product. To get that you have to have independent lab testing. We have solar reflectivity 83% (.83). Emissivity - 90% (.90). I believe the reflectivty of the aluminum alloy on the ttrailer roofs is around 12%.

However, Energy Star Cool Roof products are only Energy Star rated for use on roofs and ONLY roofs. And, in fact, they made us place a statement to that effect on the website. We are also used as an interior / exterior paint and I referred to it as being an Energy Star 'paint'. Got a deserved lecture for that and had to reword the site.

We want to prove to the agencies what we can do for refrigerated trucks and, hopefully at some point, be classified as a 'Cool Roof product for refrigerated traucks also. A brand new classification for an insulating material and the associated tax incentives and possibly funding made available for this application, just like they have for doing the roof of a building.

One of the EPA's national labs is around 6 months into a 1-year test of our coating on different types of roofing materials and sheetrock.

According to our cpa, the only tax benefit abailable to a trucking company is a break on exise tax, apperently not much of an incentive. We hope the feds will change that and give much more of an incentive for all the reasons I mentioned. If we can accomplish that, we can start setting up regional application centers and hire and train folks to apply it correctly, in other words CREATE JOBS. That is our hope any ways.

As far as our coating only being effective in hot climates, it is also very effective at retaining heat in a building or structure as well when used as an interior / or exyerior paint.. Even the Energy Star's website says that products like our have next to ZERO value as a conductive heat barrier. Well, the lab people say that what we do as a conductive heat barrier is impossible and defies the laws of physics. Well, I guess we are going to re-write their rulebooks then.

We have coated boilers and steampipes with a thick ( about credit card thick) coat and dropped the exterior skin temperature from 267F down to 155F and 600F down to 330F.

An exhaust vent from a kiln from 400F down to 100F. The lab people say that is impossible. They also say it is impossible to hit our material with am infra-red heat gun thermometer and NOT get a reading. Then we have done the impossible because NOONE has been able to get a reading off our coating in 25-years.

At any rate, I am just hoping to find someone that has done something similar to this to draw on what they experienced with the trucks..

Without knowing the cost of the product installed, have you done any studies on how long it takes to pay back the investment.

Sorta looks like a no brainer if the ROI is reasonable.

Good luck.

A 40 foot trailer roof is about 320 sq ft. Payback is pretty quick when you take into consideration that diesel fuel is around $3.00 per gallon. You can see on our site what kind of results we get on interiors when we create an envelope by painting the sheetrock.

Reduced runtime also equates to extended life of the equipment. I have alot of statements from different applications at the site that will give you an idea.

http://www.ct-texas.com

I have a small experiment in mind.

Your concept seems straightforward and meritorious. If your energy savings numbers are verifiable, especially via third parties, it is surprising that this didn't/doesn't catch on better. As with Lyn, I agree that the main mission of the EPA is about pollution prevention rather than energy efficiency. However, the Department of Energy has a number of labs that should be interested in energy saving strategies. Maybe you could approach them for some testing that would confirm your techniques, and thereby make them more marketable. This quest deserves the best wishes for good luck.

Hi there,

I would use several portable temperature recorders at various locations within the trailers and then compare. The temp recorders are commonly referred to as "tattle-tails" used to monitor temps during "TC" shipments.

The older units had a paper tape upon which recording were punched but the newer ones have chip, they are about 2.5" x 3.5" x 5" with double-back tape applied to the one or more surfaces.

A few gallons here and a few gallons there and pretty soon there is one less oil tanker and less pollution.

Hey Popfar,

That is how we see it also.

Less run time for the diesel units means extended equipment life. Thier products are better protected from the heat too, less loss there.

Less fuel money spent and less exhaust emissions.

A 40 ft trailer would require around 3 1/2 to 4 gallons to coat. preparation can be variable from quick and easy to 3 to 4 hours, depemdimng on how much exhaust residue / oil is on the metal.

Even then, cheap investment for what they get back AND it carries a 15 year warranty.

http://www.ct-texas.com

The lab guys at SWRI are getting together to come up with some testing metrics that will work. Not sure what it is going to be at this point but it is getting interesting.

:)