As a passionate green designer, I find few things more boring or environmentally-challenged than standard asphalt shingles on a residential roof. Thankfully there are lots of green roofing materials that have a variety of eco-friendly attributes such as being Energy Star rated or containing recycled content. Oh and by the way, they look great too!
In this piece we’ll focus on roofing materials rather than on alternative roofing systems such as green (living) roofs or solar PV roofing tiles. You can read more about green roofs in this recent blog posting, and we’ll soon be doing a piece on solar roofing tiles.
When considering a new roof, the two key dimensions you should think about are the material and the color (and, of course, cost!).
First, Materials. A high performance roofing material coupled with a well insulated attic will help to keep your home warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Your roofing material is the final layer of protection from the outdoor elements and from indoor heat loss. When deciding what’s green and what’s not, you should consider several aspects of a given material. These include the raw material source and composition, durability / life cycle, maintenance, and disposal. Often there are tradeoffs: a very durable and efficient material (such as metal) might require more energy to produce. Cost and ease of installation are not necessarily green attributes, but will always be factors in your decision.
Next Color. It should be no surprise that a light colored roof reflects heat and a dark roof absorbs it. Due to overdevelopment in urban areas, an abundance of dark colored roofs (often asphalt) can raise outdoor temperatures.
Elevated temperatures impact communities by increasing peak energy demand, air conditioning costs, and air pollution levels. Light colored roofs, often referred to as “Cool Roofs”, are roofing materials that have a high solar reflectance rate and thus help to reduce outdoor temperatures and reduce heat transferred into a house. This happens because cool roofs reflect the sun’s energy and keep the roofing material cooler on those hot summer days. If you live in a heating-dominated climate outside of the city, dark roofs may be the way to go since they will capture more of the sun’s energy during cold weather. But in most urban and cooling-dominated places, light is right! [ Read Entire Article ]
(This article was taken from www.lowimpactliving.com)