The only conservative policies that aren’t a smokescreen for their desire to oppress others are the conservative policies that openly display their desire to oppress others.

Yes, I have an attic. Through it runs my AC ducts which are insulated pretty poorly from what I can tell. And yes, additional insulation above the ceiling of the interior spaces. The attic itself is at deadly temperatures pretty much all summer long, because attic ventilation does not adequately clear the heat. This has been true of every house I’ve lived in since I was a kid. (Which is a lot of houses because I’m old)

It’s difficult for me to imagine that permanently shading the roof and leaving an air gap above it would not improve things in addition to the presence of insulation and the attic itself, since it would lower temps in the attic. Regardless of the presence of insulation, reducing the delta between the attic temp and interior temp seems like it would be a win to me. My question, ultimately, is how much would a spaced layer above the roof impact this. To me, it feels like it would impact that delta a lot, but maybe not.

I have to admit I was really thinking of houses - it seems to me a small expense for such a potentially substantial improvement, especially if done at construction time.

(None of this is to disagree with the idea of using lighter/more reflective roofing materials, FWIW.)

Edit - and I don’t mean a giant umbrella or similar, I feel like a typical home could easily just have a structure the size of the roof and spaced a few inches out from it.

This seems as good a place as any to ask this question that has recently been on my mind.

Would a spaced secondary layer act as a sort of barrier to the direct heating effect of sunlight hitting the roof, effectively shading the entire thing and reducing the load on an interior AC?

I understand insulation exists, but keeping the largest upward facing surface of the building from direct sunlight feels like a no-brainer to me.