Replacing the weathered built-up roof at Mission San Jose High School in Fremont, Calif., could have been a financial burden for this school district’s budget. But replacing it with a cool roof system that incorporates polyesters, SBS modified, and cool coatings helped the district save money while teaching the community about green initiatives.
Reducing utility costs makes financial sense, preserves natural resources and helps the environment. But renewables and other green technologies have the added allure of allowing building owners to not only conserve energy but generate power as well.
As part of a $12.5 million renovation designed to free the historic Friends Center in Center City Philadelphia from reliance on fossil fuels, the campus of buildings now boasts a 10,000-square-foot vegetated roof - the first in Center City and the largest in Philadelphia.
One green corporation’s search for an environmentally friendly roofing system is complete after Sharp provided roof-mounted solar modules for the nation’s largest commercial solar electricity system at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.
The "cool roofing" concept is hardly a new one, having been recognized by organizations such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) since the mid-1990s. Much time and effort have been expended to not only educate all concerned parties about this concept, but to encourage them to deploy products that "produce" cool roofing.
GlasKap® CR, Johns Manville’s white acrylic coated fiber glass cap sheet, allowed Enterprise Roofing to meet California’s Title 24 energy code requirements.
As cool roofing enters a second decade of high visibility and growth, it is a safe bet that most building owners, facility managers and roofing contractors are well aware of the two primary benefits.
Big fields of open roofing are easy to cover. The devil is in the details. Flashing, vents and gutters cover such a small area but often take the most labor because they’re put in harm’s way to divert endless streams of water, year after year. The likeliest sources of intrusion don’t get the glamour but definitely get the attention of the roofing industry. There are a number of vendors who have spent careers addressing the challenges of weathering, debris, impacts and neglect that roofing components experience.
Roofing contractors who want to become more active in the metal roofing business and have been thinking about pursuing the portable roll-forming route have to ask themselves some questions. First of all, is it worth it?
The ancient Mesopotamians had it right when they began using asphalt to waterproof temple baths and water tanks. The Phoenicians later found asphalt useful in caulking the seams of their merchant ships. And when they needed to seal their baths, reservoirs, and aqueducts, guess what substance the Romans relied on? Thousands of years later, asphalt has a proven track record documenting its ability to resist water penetration.
RSS