Could Emmisivity Make Your Pool Deck Too Hot?

If you’ve ever stepped on a hot pool deck, you understand why reflective materials are important. You might cannonball just to save your feet from the sting. When the summer sun shines down on your pool deck, certain materials and colors tend to trap heat, making the most relaxing day a painful experience.

Emissivity is (essentially) the measure of a surface’s ability to reflect or absorb heat. The lower the emissivity, the cooler the object stays.

Think about the reflective nature of aluminum foil. No matter how long it’s in the oven, heat dissipates from the surface in seconds. Ever owned black or navy-blue car? The cab can heat up in the time it takes to buy coffee. So when you’re building a pool deck under the hot southern sun, you definitely don’t want it soaking up the heat.

We all know that darker colors tend to absorb more heat, but what if you want darker colors for your hardscaping? Will you have to live with a hotter pool deck or patio? The short answer: absolutely not. Here at Pan American, we create cast stone in a wide range of colors, and we use one simple trick to lower the emissivity.

Let’s do a little “experiment.” We’ll make one gray cast stone paver with white cement and color it gray. Then we’ll make another with gray cement and color it a lighter shade of gray. Can you guess which one will stay cooler under thermal stress? If you answered the darker gray made with white cement – you’re absolutely right. Because the dark gray paver uses white cement as a base, it contains more natural reflective elements. White cement lowers the emissivity of your precast by making any color more “reflective.” That means that you can keep your dark colors without worrying about singeing your foot in the southern heat.

The same goes for all the products we make at Pan American Marble and Stone. After working in Florida for 50 years, you learn that it’s just as important to make beautiful stone as it is to create products that stay cool at the pool and patio.

If you’ve been wondering whether or not your pool deck is ready for a makeover, consider this: do you climb out of the pool onto a hot deck? After taking a relaxing swim on a hot day, do you have to sprint across the deck to save your feet? If that sounds familiar, you should consider installing a new, fully customized precast deck. Between the durable and beautiful cast stone and the cooler deck, you’ll have a new and relaxing space for you, your friends, and your family.