Green Hands USA: America Volunteers

Want to reduce your energy costs while keeping your home or business cool in the summer and warm in the winter? Then you may want to consider a vegetated roof cover. Also known as "green roofs" or eco-roofs, these are not your ancestor?s sod roof from the old country. Eco-roofs are now available in smart, high-tech, lightweight modular systems that can protect a building?s structure while lowering energy usage.

Green roofs provide multiple benefits for the consumer and the environment. They are pleasant to look at, reduce the "heat island" effect in summer of urban areas, and treat nitrogen pollution and acid rain by absorbing the corrosive pollutant. The flooding that occurs in suburban and urban areas during storms is also abated because green roofs absorb water so drainage systems are not overwhelmed.

Want to know more? A great place to start is this webpage, which contains several design tools to help you plan your own green roof.

Green roof technology: It?s a win-win situation for the environment and the consumer!