Aluminum Shade Cloth

I was driving on the freeway when I noticed the car was making strange noises beneath the engine.  I parked at the nearest mall to investigate.  It appeared the plastic protector under the engine lost some part that was holding it to the underside of the car.  Lucky there was a Lowe’s in the mall.  I got some twine and tied it up to keep it from scraping on the ground.  Luckily I had some twine left for my latest project to keep cool without using the AC.

I bought a 10×10 aluminum shade cloth with 99% reflectance to place over the patio umbrella I used to keep the sun off my living room patio door.

I looped the twine through the grommet of the shade cloth and tied it to the metal frame of the umbrella.

I took temperature measurements with an infrared thermometer.

Readings I took of the umbrella before adding the shade cloth 1pm:

110-115F top of the umbrella with just umbrella fabric

92-97F 2 sunshields underneath

84F top sun shield + 2 sunshields underneath

75-77F living area under the umbrella

Temperature measurements after adding aluminum shade cloth 1:20pm:

97-110F underneath umbrella with 2 sunshields underneath
88-94F  underneath umbrella with 2 sunshields underneath + aluminum shade cloth on top
75-79F living area under the umbrella

The reason the temperatures are higher on the second test is it was warmer that day.  The aluminum shade cloth is doing a great job keeping my umbrella from heating up from the sun.  While parts of my umbrella go over 110F now the highest temperature is 94F.  I am very impressed by the shade cloth which is kinda like a huge reflective tarp.

The other umbrella on my patio only has car sunshields underneath the umbrella fabric and is about 10 degrees hotter.

In conclusion adding the aluminum shade cloth to the top of my patio umbrella has cooled the umbrella down over 10F.  My patio is now a few degrees warmer than the air temperature in my zip code.  This is an amazing result as in the past my patio was like an oven from the sun heating it up till near sunset.