Ethnography of Cool Roof Retrofits: The Role of Rebates in the Materials Selection Process
In the summer of 2010, ethnographic research was conducted with nine households in the Bay Area and Sacramento region. The purpose of this task was to collect methodologically grounded insights into how and why consumers chose the cool roofing material they selected. These nine households comprised fifteen respondents, and their dependents. They were selected from among a pool of respondents to a mail solicitation of all Sacramento Municipal Utility District and Pacific Gas and Electric customers who had received a rebate for their cool roof retrofit. Consumers are uniformly happy with their cool roof retrofits. Consumers typically stayed very close to the aesthetic of the original roof style. Price was not a primary concern, while longevity was paramount. Consumers did not use roofing price, nor energy savings (with one exception), in tracking return on investment through energy savings. The utility rebate had little role to play in terms of incentivizing customers to choose cool materials. Contractors were critical partners in the decision-making process.