ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — Energy savings are going to be through the ceiling at the Orange Beach Recreation Center when a new coating dampers the effects of ultraviolet rays on its roof.

“We’re looking at, right now, at least another 15 percent energy savings off of our power bill during the summer months because of the UV reflectivity that we have with the product that we’re putting on and the sealing properties that it has,” Manager Chris Litton said. “It will seal the roof all together.”

The city paid $41,900 to Gulf Coast Surface Solutions to put on the new surface. At first, Litton said, the goal was to stop some leaks.

“The sealant product almost seems like a rubberized material,” he said. “It goes in and fills in all the seams and seals everything up and stops the leaks. That was our main thing, trying to stop the leaks here in the building. It’s a 10-year-old roof and we just wanted to make sure we got all those sealed up.”

Adding the UV resistant top coat to the sealant made will reduce the amount of work the air conditioning system has to do in the summer.

“It’s from 85- to 90-degree reduction in surface temperature on the roof and a 95 percent UV reflectivity,” Litton said. “They are saying to expect up to an 18-degree inside temperature drop once we’re done with this. That’s big. That’s going to make a big difference in our power bill there.

“It’s a 20,000-square-foot roof that we did this. They said it was a 30-degree drop in attic temperature by having this product on the roof.”

Energy saving has been the buzzword at the recreation center since the city installed a new computer program to monitor the heating and air conditioning at the facility. The utility bill was going through the roof before the system was in place.

Since it has been installed, Litton says it has saved the city more than a quarter of a million dollars.

“That was a $20,000 system that we put in and in 2012 we saved over $94,000 on our power bill from 2009, the last year that we did not have the system in place,” Litton said. “I use that as a baseline. I had a difference of $93,000 in 2011.

“Today’s report is $258,000 since April of 2010 in this building alone.”

If the new roof coating performs as advertised, even more energy savings are in the future.

“They’re talking about an additional 15 percent off of my power bill in the summer months with this coating,” he said. “I figured it up and that came out to $8,000 a year if we see that savings.”

When the savings became evident on the air condition system, the city began looking at putting a similar system in other facilities to make them more efficient as well. If the roof system provides the savings advertised, it might be employed on other buildings as well.

“We’re hoping that if this comes to pass and we see the savings on this and everything turns out as it is supposed to, there are other roofs throughout the city that will be needed attention,” he said. “We’re kind of using this as a test. If this product really does work as well as we’re hoping, then we’re going to keep that in mind for some of the other projects that are coming up.”

Litton says that anything that stopping the roof leaks helps create little savings all over the building in many ways.

“It’s going to save us on labor from having to replace the ceiling tiles, wear and tear on the AC units from the extra use,” he said. “Humidity in the building that causes rust on our equipment, it’s going to cut that down because the leaks will be sealed.

“All around it’s going to be saving us more money it lots of different little areas that people don’t think about when you think about stopping a leak. We felt this was going to be the best to go.”

Next, Litton said, the staff plans to take a look at getting more efficient light fixtures and bulbs to continue the energy saving trend.

“We’ve had a lighting survey done here and depending on how this works out we are potentially going to look at later this year or perhaps early next year look at having maybe having some retrofitting done here,” he said.

And while these systems cost money, Litton says with the savings they pay for themselves.

“I’m thinking along the lines where it’s not an expense to the city, but is something in the long run that is going to pay the city back, something that’s going to save the city money.”