Cool coat to cool your home/office

SUMMER SUGGESTION

How are you coping with the scorching heat, power cuts and the boiling water running from your home's rooftop tanks this summer?

Well, at least, Vivek Mehra, the New Delhi-based executive director of PricewaterhouseCoopers India, has discovered a new paint additive to stay cool this summer.

Last month, he bought kilos of HeatBLOK "" a new insulating ceramics material in the market "" and painted the roof, water tank and the water taps of his New Friends Colony home.

"There is a perceptible differences in the temperature inside the house now. Earlier, when you entered the house, the air was oppressive. Not any more. And the water we get in our tap is cold," says Mehra.

Similarly, V K Mishra, a senior engineer at Apollo Hospital's air-conditioning department, in New Delhi, often faced complaints about poor air-conditioning in the operation theatre.

"Our linen sterilisation room is located between the two operation theatres. Since the steamers there generate heat of 130 degree centigrade, the ACs have never been effective."

After trying out every heat-proof products in the market from thermocol to glass wool "which are also time-consuming to install," Mishra turned to a HeatBLOK. "Since we started using the product, the surgeons have stopped complaining," says Mishra.

HeatBLOK is the new imported heat-reflective product that promises to keep temperatures at bay.

Imported from the US by Delhi-based International Chemical Corporation, the product, when mixed with paint and applied on surfaces like wall, roof , ceilings and water tanks is said to bring temperatures down by nearly 10 degrees.

Its executive director, Kamal Aneja, says "What HeatBLOK does is that it brings down the surface temperature to ambient levels. Today , if the temperature is 38 degree centigrade, it's not very pleasant to walk barefoot on the roof as there is a lot of latent heat that absorbs and reflects back. So what the material does is that it reflects the radiant heat after it gets saturated with all the heat it can absorb, and cools the surface equal to ambient temperature level."

To be effective, additive worth Rs 2,500 would be required to cover an area 2,500 sq ft, or will roughly costs Re 1 per sq ft. "The additives are as easy to use as adding cornflakes to milk which our trained personnel can demonstrate to the interested parties," says Aneja.

Introduced in the market in November, Aneja has been holding demonstration to prove the efficacy of the product right from the Rashtrapati Bhavan's swimming pool, cold storages in Uttar Pradesh to army barrack and farm houses in Delhi. Bookings can be also made on its website (www.iccindia.biz).

COOL CONTACT: International Chemicals Corporation, Plot No. 643, Exporter's Complex, Devli, New Delhi - 110062, INDIA. Tel. : 26070658/9, 2996 3620/1 Fax : 91-11- 2607 0659