01/28/2016

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Going Green With White Roofing Original Source: http://oldproroofing.com/going-green-white-roofing/ Going Green With White Roofing How much can white or green roofs do to fight climate change? That depends on the region, says a new study, finding that white roofs offer less benefit in Northern areas than Southern ones like Fort Worth. However you view global warming, it’s still a hot topic these days and so is saving money. But how do white roofs make a difference? If you live in a state that gets half as hot as it does here in Texas, then you know not to wear black when the sun is out. But when it comes to choosing your roof style, aesthetics usually trump tree hugging, and if you’re like most Americans, nothing looks as good as a dark colored roof. But let’s take a look at what it does to your wallet: A dark roof means higher electric bills. It’s not “maybe” or “might” – it absolutely does. Of course, along with that comes a higher carbon dioxide emission from the power plant having to pump out the extra electricity. The good news? There are plenty of options out there (maybe one that even YOU would like!) for giving your house a new sun-reflecting top that will make your wallet and the weatherman thank you. The Benefits of a White Roof By choosing a reflective roof, you can your energy consumption by 20% in hot times of the year. Hashem Akbari from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Heat Island Group in Berkeley, California says that transitioning to reflective roofing and pavements in the world’s urban areas would offset the equivalent of emissions from the planet’s 600 million cars for the next 18 years. What’s more is the average house in the United States is more than 2000 square feet, which would save more than 1 ton of carbon dioxide per year. White roofs can help to lower smog levels in urban areas because it causes a drop in temperature despite all the paved surfaces. Some naysayers think that a white roof wouldn’t work out in a colder climate. This is incorrect according to Akbari. “The amount of heat savings you may lose in the winter would be, at maximum, 30% of the summertime savings,” he says. “If you need cooling in the summer and heating in the winter, no matter where you are, a white roof will most likely save you money.” This is because the winter brings shorter and cloudier days, plus inclement weather like snow causing a covering on the roof. Cool New Roof Options Cool roofs refer to roofs made up of carbon footprint-reducing materials. They come in several lighter shades, not just white and there is not much of a cost difference on the different shades. Here are a few ways to save on the install of a new cool roof: Only replace your roof with a cool roof when it’s time for a new roof because of age or maintenance. Instead of completely replacing your roof, just cover your roof with a white roof coating. Coatings protect and seal and increase the life of your current roof. The cost is $0.50 to $1 per square foot and the lower energy bills will get that paid back to you in no time! Before you begin calling your local roofer about installing a new cool roof, let’s discuss some resources a little further to aid you in your decision-making process. Roof Resources There are several resources you can use as an aid in your cool roof purchasing process. There is a Solar Reflectance Index developed by the Heat Island Group that measures the reflectance and thermal emittance of a cool roof. Reflectance and thermal emittance are the properties by which a cool roof is measured. Reflectance is the ability of the product to reflect energy away from the roof. Thermal emittance is the roof’s ability to radiate the absorbed heat. Both of these properties should be high. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Cool Roofing Materials Database and the Cool Roof Rating Council contain information about whichever type of cool roof you might be considering. Check the Database of State Incentives for Renewable & Efficiency for rebates and other helpful details. It may also be worth it to contact your utility company to see if there are any programs in place in your area specific to cool roofs. To find out how to get a white roof for your home or business call the roofing contractor Fort Worth trusts at Old Pro Roofing! We’ll help you decide what cool roofing options are best for you and we’ll include a free quote. Call (817) 929-7663 today to get started saving money and enjoy your nice, cool, Fort Worth roofing. Original Source: http://oldproroofing.com/going-green-white-roofing/ This is brought to you by: Aquashield Roofing Corporation Class B Contractors Lic ense Number 2705-186085 4006 Morris Ct, Chesapeake, VA 23323 757-553-5191 https://aquashieldroof.com https://www.facebook.com/Virginiabeachroofing/ The most trusted roofer in the Hampton Roads area, Jeff Childers, operates Aquashield Roofing Corporation, the best and most trusted roofing company in the Tidewater area. Aquashield Roofing Corporation provides free estimates on roofing services. The roofers behind Aquashield Roofing Corporation are skilled with installing new roofs on both residential and commercial properties. Aquashield Roofing Corporation is the most skilled roofing contractor in the Hampton Roads region. Our roofing company provides commercial and residential roofing solutions across the seven cities. Some of our roofing service areas included are: Virginia Beach, Virginia, Chesapeake, Virginia, Norfolk, Virginia, Portsmouth, Virginia, Suffolk, Virginia, Newport News, Virginia, Hampton, Virginia. Call Aquashield Roofing Corporation now for a free roofing estimate at 757-553-5191. Roofing Contractor, Roofing Services, Roofing Repair, Roof Leak Repairs, Roofing Company, New Roof, Roof Replacement, Roofing Company, Roofing Companies, Free Roof Repair Estimate, shingle repairs, shingle roofer, Flat Roofer, Commercial Roofing, Residential Roofing, Roofing Contractor, Roofing Services, Roofing Repair, Roof Leak Repairs, Roofing Company, New Roof, Roof Replacement, Roofing Company, Roofing Companies, Free Roof Repair Estimate, shingle repairs, shingle roofer, Flat Roofer, Commercial Roofing, Residential Roofing, Asphalt Shingle...
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Green Roofs Can Save Our Planet Photograph by Diane Cook and Len Jenshel Up on the Roof A lofty idea is blossoming in cities around the world, where acres of potential green space lie overhead. By Verlyn Klinkenborg Article Source: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/05/green-roofs/klinkenborg-text If buildings sprang up suddenly out of the ground like mushrooms, their rooftops would be covered with a layer of soil and plants. That’s not how humans build, of course. Instead we scrape away the earth, erect the structure itself, and cap it with a rainproof, presumably forgettable, roof. It’s tempting to say that the roofscape of every city on this planet is a man-made desert, except that a desert is a living habitat. The truth is harsher. The urban roofscape is a little like hell—a lifeless place of bituminous surfaces, violent temperature contrasts, bitter winds, and an antipathy to water. But step out through a hatch onto the roof of the Vancouver Public Library at Library Square—nine stories above downtown—and you’ll find yourself in a prairie, not an asphalt wasteland. Sinuous bands of fescues stream across the roof, planted not in flats or containers but into a special mix of soil on the roof. It’s a grassland in the sky. At ground level, this 20,000-square-foot garden—created in 1995 by landscape architect Cornelia H. Oberlander—would be striking enough. High above Vancouver, the effect is almost disorienting. When we go to the rooftops in cities, it’s usually to look out at the view. On top of the library, however, I can’t help feeling that I’m standing on the view—this unexpected thicket of green, blue, and brown grasses in the midst of so much glass and steel and concrete. Living roofs aren’t new. They were common among sod houses on the American prairie, and roofs of turf can still be found on log houses and sheds in northern Europe. But in recent decades, architects, builders, and city planners all across the planet have begun turning to green roofs not for their beauty—almost an afterthought—but for their practicality, their ability to mitigate the environmental extremes common on conventional roofs. Across town from the library, the Vancouver Convention Centre is getting a new living roof. Just across the street there is a chef’s garden on the roof of the Fairmont Waterfront hotel. Across town in another direction, green roofs will go up on an Olympic village being built for the 2010 Winter Olympics. To stand on a green roof in Vancouver—or Chicago or Stuttgart or Singapore or Tokyo—is to glimpse how different the roofscapes of our cities might look and to wonder, Why haven’t we always built this way? Technology is only partly the reason. Waterproof membranes now make it easier to design green-roof systems that capture water for irrigation, allow drainage, support the growing medium, and resist the invasion of roots. In some places, such as Portland, Oregon, builders are encouraged to use living roofs by fee reductions and other incentives. In others—such as Germany, Switzerland, and Austria—living roofs are required by law on roofs of suitable pitch. And, increasingly, researchers such as Maureen Connelly—who runs a green-roof lab at the British Columbia Institute of Technology—are studying the practical benefits green roofs offer, helping quantify how they perform and providing an accurate measure of their ability to reduce storm-water runoff, increase energy efficiency, and enhance the urban soundscape. There is beginning to be a critical mass of green roofs around the world, each one an experiment in itself. Another factor driving the spread of green roofs is our changing idea of the city. It’s no longer wise or practical or, for that matter, ethical, to think of the city as the antithesis of nature. Finding ways to naturalize cities—even as nature itself becomes more urbanized—will make them more livable, and not only for humans. Living roofs remind us what a moderating force natural biological systems are. During the summer, daytime temperatures on conventional asphalt rooftops can be almost unbelievably high, peaking above 150°F and contributing to the overall urban heat-island effect—the tendency of cities to be warmer than the surrounding region. On green roofs the soil mixture and vegetation act as insulation, and temperatures fluctuate only mildly—hardly more than they would in a park or garden—reducing heating and cooling costs in the buildings below them by as much as 20 percent. When rain falls on a conventional roof, it sheets off the city’s artificial cliffs and floods down its artificial canyons into storm drains—unabsorbed, unfiltered, and nearly undeterred. A living roof works the way a meadow does, absorbing water, filtering it, slowing it down, even storing some of it for later use. That ultimately helps reduce the threat of sewer overflows, extends the life of a city’s drain system, and returns cleaner water to the surrounding watershed. London, for example, is already planning for a future that may well see more street flooding, and the city is considering how living roofs could moderate the threat. Above all, living roofs are habitable. They recapture what is now essentially negative space within the city and turn it into a chain of rooftop islands that connect with the countryside at large. Species large and small—ants, spiders, beetles, lapwings, plovers, crows—have taken up occupancy on living roofs. The list includes Britain’s black redstarts, a bird that colonizes the rubble of abandoned industrial sites, a habitat being lost to redevelopment. The solution fostered by Dusty Gedge, a British wildlife consultant and a driving force behind green roofs in the United Kingdom, is to create living rooftop habitat out of the same rubble. And it’s not just a matter of making new or replacing existing habitat. In Zrich, Switzerland, the 95-year-old living roof of a water-filtration system serves as a refuge for nine species of native orchids eradicated from the surrounding countryside when their meadow habitat was converted to cropland. Proponents of living roofs argue that they have met most, if not all, of the technical challenges involved in grafting a biological layer onto the top of buildings of almost any scale: everything from...