Dansko, the West Grove, Pa., clog maker, was building a new, environmentally friendly corporate facility and wanted to meet the highest green standards. Owners Peter Kjellerup and Mandy Cabot knew about the benefits of green roofs - they are standard practice in Kjellerup’s native Denmark - but found few American contractors implementing green roofs.
People talk about “win-win” situations all the time, but a business that keeps asphalt shingles out of landfills and saves contractors money at the same time sounds like an ideal example.
Hedrick Construction Inc. of Huxley, Iowa, has relied on old-fashioned hard work and great customer referrals to build a sterling reputation over the past decade. Owner Shawn Hedrick, 32, and his wife, Business Manager Heather Hedrick, 31, both have college degrees, but it was Shawn who was looking for work out of college when a part-time roofing job led him to start his own company nearly ten years ago.
What do most people visualize when they hear or read the phrase green roofing? Usually it conjures up images of an aesthetically pleasing roof on top of a building in an urban area covered with soil and vegetation. Or maybe one thinks of an array of solar panels. Are either of these examples the ultimate in green roofing?
Whether it’s a large commercial project or a single-family residence, one company is poised to help building owners who are looking into solar power. Headquartered in Los Gatos, Calif., Akeena Solar has been designing and installing solar systems since 2001, and Jose Tengco, Director of Communications at Akeena, says the company has been an innovator since its inception.
Actually, to call the late Senator James Strom Thurmond of South Carolina an icon would be something of an understatement. At the time of his retirement from the United States Senate at the age of 100, he was the longest-serving senator in U.S. history. Before that he crashed his glider in the World War II Battle of Normandy on the way to earning 18 medals, decorations and awards.
Completed in the spring of 2008, the cool and green roof demonstration/research project of Ann Arbor, Mich.-based architecture and design firm A3C took place atop its UrbEn Retreat. The project was implemented with the assistance of Firestone Building Products and in collaboration with Prof. Moji Nawab of the University of Michigan’s Sustainable Design Research Lab.
David Welch is a roofing contractor who also happens to be a pilot. His vocation of roofing and his hobby of flying have come together in the form of a new service being offered by his company: roof inspections via infrared (IR) thermography.
As green building strategies evolve to keep up with increasingly stringent building energy codes and standards, so do cool roofs. A roof, as any other building component, can be selected to best serve a particular purpose, such as weather resistance or thermal regulation. Cool roofs are optimally designed to minimize the transfer of heat from the sun to the interior of a building.
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