Benefits of green roof.

A green roof is a layer of vegetation planted over a waterproofing system that is installed on top of a flat or slightly–sloped roof. Green roofs are also known as vegetative or eco–roofs. They fall into three main categories—extensive, intensive, and semi–intensive.

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Here are top 3 benefits of green roof.

1. Eco-friendly 

As our community releases more carbon dioxide, it contributes to global warming. 

Green roofs being present in highly urbanized communities helps filter carbon dioxide and release oxygen into the environment. With plants present, it will also act as a home for birds and other animals. 

Moreover, it creates more sound barriers than those usual materials. It absorbs sound, providing a quieter and calmer indoors. 

Green roofs serve several purposes for a building, such as absorbing rainwater, providing insulation, creating a habitat for wildlife, increasing benevolence and decreasing stress of the people around the roof by providing a more aesthetically pleasing landscape, and helping to lower urban air temperatures and mitigate the heat island effect. 

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Green roofs are suitable for retrofit or redevelopment projects as well as new buildings and can be installed on small garages or larger industrial, commercial and municipal buildings. They effectively use the natural functions of plants to filter water and treat air in urban and suburban landscapes. 

There are two types of green roof: intensive roofs, which are thicker, with a minimum depth of 12.8 cm (5+1⁄16 in), and can support a wider variety of plants but are heavier and require more maintenance, and extensive roofs, which are shallow, ranging in depth from 2 cm (13⁄16 in) to 12.7 cm (5 in), lighter than intensive green roofs, and require minimal maintenance.

The term green roof may also be used to indicate roofs that use some form of green technology, such as a cool roof, a roof with solar thermal collectors or photovoltaic panels. Green roofs are also referred to as eco-roofs, oikosteges, vegetated roofs, living roofs, greenroofs and VCPH (Horizontal Vegetated Complex Partitions)

2. Better Water Drainage 

Because of the increasing urbanized housing, it also calls for an increase in drainage to be able to accommodate the rainwater to avoid flooding in the area. 

Green Roofing addresses these issues as plants and substrate accumulate rainwater during the heavy rains and filter it during the process before it releases into the environment, this lessens the amount of stormwater in the local drainage system.

Green roofs improve and reduce energy consumption. They can reduce heating by adding mass and thermal resistance value, also can reduce the heat island by increasing evapotranspiration. A 2005 study by Brad Bass of the University of Toronto showed that green roofs can also reduce heat loss and energy consumption in winter conditions. A modeling study found that adding green roofs to 50 percent of the available surfaces in downtown Toronto would cool the entire city by 0.1 to 0.8 °C (0.2 to 1.4 °F).

A green roof reduces cooling (by evaporative cooling) loads on a building by fifty to ninety percent, especially if it is glassed-in so as to act as a terrarium and passive solar heat reservoir.

A concentration of green roofs in an urban area can even reduce the city's average temperatures during the summer, combating the urban heat island effect.[15] Traditional building materials soak up the sun's radiation and re-emit it as heat, making cities at least 4 °C (7.2 °F) hotter than surrounding areas. 

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On Chicago's City Hall, by contrast, which features a green roof, roof temperatures on a hot day are typically 1.4–4.4 °C (2.5–7.9 °F) cooler than they are on traditionally roofed buildings nearby. Green roofs are becoming common in Chicago, as well as in Atlanta, Portland, and other United States cities, where their use is encouraged by regulations to combat the urban heat-island effect. Green roofs are a type of low impact development. 

In the case of Chicago, the city has passed codes offering incentives to builders who put green roofs on their buildings. The Chicago City Hall green roof is one of the earliest and most well-known examples of green roofs in the United States; it was planted as an experiment to determine the effects a green roof would have on the microclimate of the roof. Following this and other studies, it has now been estimated that if all the roofs in a major city were greened, urban temperatures could be reduced by as much as 7 °C (13 °F)

3. Longer roof lifespan

Roofs are the initial barrier of our home against natural elements from getting in our home, but as plants are part of our environment it also benefits from it. 

The possibility of it being damaged due to rain, wind, or animals is little to none which means that cost for repair and maintenance is lesser over time. 

Green roofs create natural habitat as part of an urban wilderness. Even in high-rise urban settings as tall as 19 stories, it has been found that green roofs can attract beneficial insects, birds, bees and butterflies. A recent list of the bee species recorded from green roofs (worldwide) highlights both the diversity of species, but also the (expected) bias towards small ground-nesting species (Hofmann and Renner, 2017). 

Rooftop greenery complements wild areas by providing stepping stones for songbirds, migratory birds and other wildlife facing shortages of natural habitat.

Green roofs also serve as a green wall, filtering pollutants and carbon dioxide out of the air, helping to lower rates of diseases such as asthma. They can also filter pollutants and heavy metals out of rainwater.

An additional environmental benefit of a green roof is the ability to sequester carbon. Carbon is the main component of plant matter and is naturally absorbed by plant tissue. The carbon is stored in the plant tissue and the soil substrate through plant litter and root exudates. 

A study on green roofs in Michigan and Maryland found the above ground biomass and below ground substrate stored on average between 168 g C m−2 and 107 g C m−2 . Variations occurred among the different species of plant used. Substrate carbon content averaged 913 g C m−2 and after the subtraction of the original carbon content the total sequestration was 378 g C m−2.

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The sequestration can be improved by changing plant species, increasing substrate depth, substrate composition, and management practices. In a study done in Michigan above ground sequestration ranged from 64 g C m−2 to 239 g C m−2 for S. acre and S album.

Also, by increasing the substrate depth would allow for more area of carbon storage and diversify the types of plants with greater potential of carbon storage. The direct carbon sequestration techniques and methods can be measured and accounted for. 

Green roofs also indirectly reduce CO2 given off by power plants through their ability to insulate buildings. Buildings in the US account for 38% of the total carbon dioxide emissions. 

A model supported by the U.S. Department of Energy found a 2 percent reduction in electricity consumption and 9-11% reduction in natural gas when implementing green roofs.

Conclusion

Swadley Roof Systems offers the best roofing services in the Houston, Austin, San Antonio and Dallas area.