Abstract The thermal behavior of 12 standard and cool pavement structures (asphalt, granite, stabilized sand, cobblestones, reflective paints, pervious concretes, dry grass, etc.) coupled with pavement-watering is studied in the lab under heat-wave-like conditions. Watering is fine-tuned for each structure to maximize cooling and minimize water consumption using two linear cooling regimes, before deployment in the field. The surface heat budget is closely studied and the partitioning of irradiance and net radiation into conductive, convective, radiative and cooling flux at surface is analyzed for each structure. Energy partitioning, surface temperature increase and optimal watering rates all exhibit good correlation with overall surface absorptivity. The transmitted flux at varying depths is also characterized using a transmission index that includes surface absorptivity and apparent conductivity of the traversed layers. Results of this study intend to improve our understanding of the energy balance of cool pavements compared to traditional ones under given weather conditions, as well as that of processes involved in the optimization of their evaporative cooling versus watering rate. Benefits of each pavement, efficiency of the method, limitations of the protocol and its potential transposition to the field are all discussed in this contribution.