Essence of Home Improvement

Posts Tagged ‘environmentally friendly’

Choosing the appropriate type of roofing material assumes prime importance since the roof is the most important part of any housing set up. Though asphalt shingles is considered as one of the most common type of roofing material because they are a lot cheaper, but the main shortcoming that is associated with this type of building material is that they are environmentally a lot harmful.

The Living Roof is considered as one of the most popular choices that are associated with environmentally friendly roofing. A superior type of insulation facility, as well as facility to be able to grow plants on the top most layer of the roof enables it to prove a lot more environmentally friendly. This concept of green roof is mostly found in the country of Germany. The green roof systems can be categorized both as intensive as well as extensive. This differentiation in this type of environmentally friendly roofing is due to the material of the plant and the intended usage of the plant area. A wide diversity of shrubs as well as trees is grown on the green roof systems. One of the advantageous factors that are associated with the green top roofs is that they can minimize the electric bill to an appreciable extent. The plants that are grown on the living roof help to eliminate the related pollutants from the atmosphere.

Cedar Shake Roofs are also one of the other most popular forms of roofing. Untreated cedar is mainly used for making such type of roofs. Compared to the other materials that are made of wood they do not decay easily. Cedar shake roofs are associated with different environmentally affable options. Shake tiles and cedar shingles are one of the other options that are considered to be environmentally friendly. The solar roof tile can also be used for roofing purposes. The presence of photovoltaic modules helps to integrate them with any roofing system of standard type. Such solar roof tiles help a lot to provide environmentally friendly roofing. 78KGPJTT2JZN

Whether building a new home, or simply getting ready to reroof your old home, choosing an environmentally friendly roof can not only help you, but can help the environment as well. More and more people are finding using green roofing solutions for their homes can save them time, effort, and money in the long run as well as help protect the environment. Here are four green roofing solutions and how they can benefit you and the world around you.

Living Roofs

A living roof is a roof covered with grasses and plants. These roofs help lower your heating and cooling costs because they provide a layer of insulation that helps your home stay cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. They are attractive as well an innovative and also help eliminate the urban heat problems in larger cities.

In areas where land for growing food is scarce a living roof could prove to be a huge help as a garden is completely possible on these kinds of roofs and in fact, many hotels and other businesses have grown gardens on their living roofs.

While these roofs do take more maintenance than some of the other green roofing solutions they are certainly an improvement over shingles and other roofing materials that are processes using fossil fuels and fill our landfills with waste.

Metal Roofs

At first glance most people would not consider metal roofs to be environmentally friendly but they are. First because they can be produced using recycled materials which reduces waste of those materials. Second they last far longer than normal asbestos shingles (3 to 4 times longer), which means that there is less waste going into landfill from these roofs as well.

They can also save you money on your home cooling costs, in some areas this saving is as much as 40%. They are attractive and wear well, making them low maintenance and easy to care for.

Solar Panels

Solar panels will help you to save money on your energy bills as you will be making some of your energy yourself. Depending on how much actual sunshine your area gets that could be a huge saving. While saving you money solar panels also can save on the environment by reducing the use of pollution sources of energy.

Spanish Roof Slate

Perhaps one of the best green roofing solutions is using Spanish roof Slate for your roofing needs. Slate is formed in nature and is one of the few completely natural forms of roofing material. It comes from the ground and can go right back into the ground when it is no longer needed without harming the environment or using landfills.

While slate roofs may need some maintenance, they are extremely low maintenance kinds of roofs, and have been known to last 100 years in some areas. This means you will save money on replacement costs and labour as your roof may never need to be replaced in your lifetime.