Speaker 1: Yeah, welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Wow, hey guys, a welcome podcast.
Speaker 1: This is Alice Manauth, the science editor at how staff
Speaker 1: works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, science writer
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. And since you guys
Speaker 1: are listening to us, you often can't tell what shenanigans
Speaker 1: were up to here at the house Stuff Works headquarters
Speaker 1: in Atlanta. But one of the shenanigans we have going
Speaker 1: on is a grilla gardening escapade. And you can talk
Speaker 1: a little bit more about this than I can. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a few of our co workers, um Mark, Candice and
Speaker 1: Marie um set out to occupy our empty planners out
Speaker 1: on the patio. We have a five of these things,
Speaker 1: like big concrete monstrosities, and for like over a year,
Speaker 1: all they've had in them have been dirt and uh,
Speaker 1: like a few weeds and people have been I was
Speaker 1: actually like occasionally composting like an apple core out there.
Speaker 1: So we had a few like doomed apple trees and
Speaker 1: you know, coming out and occasionally someone thrown orange peel
Speaker 1: in or or sadly a cigarette. But but that was
Speaker 1: all and bet I know who that was. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we probably both do. But but anyway, nobody's
Speaker 1: doing anything with it. And for there was some rumblings like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, we should go out here and plant this,
Speaker 1: because for a while you're like, oh, well, maybe you know,
Speaker 1: somebody else is gonna do it, maybe like the building's
Speaker 1: gonna take care of it. But they're not. So they
Speaker 1: set out. They brought in some soil, they brought in
Speaker 1: some some seeds and planet like some you know, it's
Speaker 1: like tomatoes and basil and all this and lo and
Speaker 1: behold it's sprouted and you can go out there now
Speaker 1: and we have planners full of green things. However, if
Speaker 1: you walk out on the patio, you know, right now,
Speaker 1: in the heat of the Georgia summer, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: a whopper. The sun is going to blast your face
Speaker 1: off and the heat hits you almost like a physical force. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it just it makes you slow and it makes you stupid,
Speaker 1: which which we found out at the Discover Your Impact
Speaker 1: day last week when we did this service project, right
Speaker 1: right when we were digging in the dirt. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: just makes you Like I was having a conversation with
Speaker 1: one of our coworkers about how we used to have
Speaker 1: offices on the eleventh floor. But now we're in and
Speaker 1: uh and how I wasn't sure if we had something
Speaker 1: on sixteen, but I was just saying fifteen for everyone,
Speaker 1: So it was really confusing for him and I, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just hapt your brain. But the thing is, it's
Speaker 1: like if you walk out on that patio after the
Speaker 1: sun has gone down, it's still hot because there's all
Speaker 1: that heat still emanating up off the concrete. Robert. That
Speaker 1: has a scientific name, doesn't it. Yes, that is the
Speaker 1: heat island effect. Yeah, And like you might imagine, the
Speaker 1: heat island effect is something that's largely confined to cities.
Speaker 1: And why because cities are, of course mostly man made structures.
Speaker 1: Cities are made with materials that often have low albedos, right,
Speaker 1: or the ability of objects to reflect solar radiation. So
Speaker 1: the classic example, I think, if you're wearing a white
Speaker 1: T shirt, it's going to have high albedo, and a
Speaker 1: black T shirt has low albedo, And cities are a
Speaker 1: lot like those black T shirts, right. And when you
Speaker 1: think about it, I mean, what is the city it's
Speaker 1: you know, oh, it's asphalt that that absorbs all that heat.
Speaker 1: It's um you know, city buildings, it's tenements, it's all
Speaker 1: this stuff. It's enormous parking lots full of full of
Speaker 1: you know, just black asphalt. And then of course you're
Speaker 1: suffering from a lack of vegetation unless maybe you do
Speaker 1: have a lot of green roofs or guerrilla gardening going
Speaker 1: on in your particular city. And so that means cities
Speaker 1: don't benefit from the cooling effects of something called evapo transporation.
Speaker 1: And evapo transporation facilitates more cooling by using heat to
Speaker 1: evaporate water from the whatever you're you're growing the plants
Speaker 1: in and the plant surfaces. So this is kind of
Speaker 1: a handy process that we like a lot of appo transporation, right,
Speaker 1: not happening so much in the cities, right. But yeah,
Speaker 1: back to the patio. The patio is not a green
Speaker 1: roof today. We're talking about green roofs. Yes, indeed, the
Speaker 1: patio is just you know, it's good. It's it's a
Speaker 1: it's a great thing we're doing out there. Uh you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's making things a little prettier. Air qualities maybe
Speaker 1: a little better, but maybe with some fresh tomatoes with lunch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But but no green roof is something um a little different, right,
Speaker 1: So what is a green roof? I mean, on a
Speaker 1: basic level, it's really just a layer of vegetation on
Speaker 1: a home, on a commercial building, any structure with the roof, basically,
Speaker 1: unless the roof is so pitched that having a green
Speaker 1: roof would be impossible. Yeah, and may I know maybe
Speaker 1: if you had like a f roof, you could like
Speaker 1: grow things in it. I suppose so, And we could
Speaker 1: be talking about anything from just putting groundcover up on
Speaker 1: top of the roof to building a huge park. And
Speaker 1: I think when most of us think things like green roofs,
Speaker 1: we think of, you know, this lush setting. We think of,
Speaker 1: you know, lots of plants. We think a little walk ways,
Speaker 1: We think of a bench maybe to sit down and
Speaker 1: eat your tuna fish sandwich. What's the one in Chicago
Speaker 1: that looks amazing Chicago City Hall? Yeah, Like you see
Speaker 1: pictures of that and it's like it's like an eden
Speaker 1: up there. It's like the hanging you know, gardens of Babylon.
Speaker 1: You can imagine Chicago. You can imagine what was the
Speaker 1: mayor daily the governor. Yeah, you can just imagine him
Speaker 1: up there, like being fed grapes as you like reclined
Speaker 1: on something. You know, that's exactly what I think of, right,
Speaker 1: So in that and that can be a green roof,
Speaker 1: but not necessarily right, So that kind of roof that
Speaker 1: we're talking about, this lush setting is going to be
Speaker 1: an intensive green roof. And there are really two main types.
Speaker 1: So intensive is one, and uh, it's gonna be park
Speaker 1: like like we're getting at. And it's also going to
Speaker 1: be a heavier load to bear on the underlying structure.
Speaker 1: I mean, after all, you're gonna have people chomping around
Speaker 1: up there, and uh, it's going to be more costly,
Speaker 1: and of course you'll need an irrigation system for all
Speaker 1: those plants, those lovely plants you'll have. But so you
Speaker 1: still want to do a green roof, but maybe you're
Speaker 1: not interested in something so extraordinary. So yeah, so in
Speaker 1: that case, you go with what they call an extensive
Speaker 1: green roof, right, less maintenance, it's less lush, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna have substrate between less than an inch and six inches.
Speaker 1: And all they mean here is think about the level
Speaker 1: that you're going to go down to plant. Right, that's
Speaker 1: where we're at. That's what we're talking about. With a substrate,
Speaker 1: think of your vegetative layer and then all the way
Speaker 1: down to uh the actual roof lair. So if you
Speaker 1: think of that distance, um, with an extensive green roof,
Speaker 1: that distance is going to be about six inches, whereas
Speaker 1: if you have an intensive green roof, the vegetation can
Speaker 1: go down to about four ft. I've seen Yeah, I
Speaker 1: actually got to see an extensive green roof last week
Speaker 1: at the Woodroof Arts Center here in Atlanta, right and
Speaker 1: you've blogged about it too. There are pictures of it.
Speaker 1: What I'm saying, Yeah, from part of our energy three deal. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they let me go up there and uh and take
Speaker 1: a look at the rooftop and it's you walk up
Speaker 1: there and it basically looks like someone just took a
Speaker 1: bunch of planners with like, you know, some gravel and
Speaker 1: some little seed ums, you know, these semi succulent little
Speaker 1: desert plants. A big fan of the seed um by
Speaker 1: the way, I don't know if you've put a planet
Speaker 1: any of those with your wife, but you know, we
Speaker 1: have a little a little succulent garden. I think we
Speaker 1: have set ums in there right well, and that's key
Speaker 1: to what you plant on your roof, because of course
Speaker 1: they're gonna be bearing the brunt of this intense sun,
Speaker 1: especially in the summertime, it might not be getting a
Speaker 1: lot of rain. Um, Like like in Atlanta, you know,
Speaker 1: we're kind of prone to droughts recently, right, So you're
Speaker 1: gonna want to make sure plants are heat and drought tolerant,
Speaker 1: and then you're also going to want to supplement their
Speaker 1: water use with the irrigation system. Depend upon what you
Speaker 1: have going on up there. Yeah, Like for instance, the
Speaker 1: would roof they have there what wood, Well, it's basically
Speaker 1: walk up there. It's like a grid of planners, like
Speaker 1: the whole rooftop flat roof grid of planners, and then
Speaker 1: it's two different rooftops where they have this system set up.
Speaker 1: And I believe they had somebody. It's scad um actually designed,
Speaker 1: Like there's like if you really look at it, there's
Speaker 1: like a swirl kind of pattern because they use different
Speaker 1: varieties of seed them um. But this is basically for
Speaker 1: if you're you know, if you're a bird, or you
Speaker 1: live in one of the taller buildings around it, you know,
Speaker 1: or if you're one of the you know, tour groups
Speaker 1: or you know, or or podcasters guess to come up
Speaker 1: on the roof. You know, you can appreciate it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just a grid work of these planners and then
Speaker 1: they have they have some of the irrigation stuff up
Speaker 1: there for you know, just in case and you know
Speaker 1: it's you know it's becomes a drought such suation and
Speaker 1: actually that and then the water for that comes from
Speaker 1: you know, their their rainwater, you know, drainage systems. So
Speaker 1: uh so, yeah, it was actually really cool but also
Speaker 1: really hot. So you can definitely see why there are
Speaker 1: desert plants growing up there because it's you're really blasted.
Speaker 1: So what have they noticed, if anything benefits from from
Speaker 1: their green roof? Um, well, I mean it pretty much
Speaker 1: lines up along the accepted benefits. I mean it's um
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's part of an overall effort that
Speaker 1: they're doing there to to tweak their energy usage, which
Speaker 1: involves like there's they have some smart grid technology going
Speaker 1: on where they can track their energy usage in real time. Um.
Speaker 1: They The big thing they did is that they just
Speaker 1: like through they had a big energy add at a
Speaker 1: few years back, and they just threw themselves at at
Speaker 1: at revamping their heating and air conditioning, uh, in terms
Speaker 1: of the hardware, but also in terms of like how
Speaker 1: they use it, like they figured out how you know, like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know we probably shouldn't, you know, air conditioned everything
Speaker 1: on a weekend. You know, so it's like what can
Speaker 1: we not air condition? And you know, and and then
Speaker 1: you know, how much are we using this particular space, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So it's you know, smart management, smart smart tech, upgraded materials,
Speaker 1: you know, tweaking everything, so they've saved you know, bunches
Speaker 1: of money. Um, it's really cool. Yeah, So you might
Speaker 1: be wondering how much a green roof could cost you.
Speaker 1: So I pulled a couple of numbers when we were
Speaker 1: researching this podcast, and I came up with ten dollars
Speaker 1: to twenty five dollars square foot according to the e
Speaker 1: p A. And of course you're gonna have some annual
Speaker 1: maintenance costs thrown in there, and those are going to
Speaker 1: range from cents to a dollar fifty because again, the
Speaker 1: idea is that you're not gonna need to go up
Speaker 1: there a lot and manage this stuff. It's it's hardy growth.
Speaker 1: That's the idea, right, right. Of course, some of your
Speaker 1: plans are gonna die. Stuff is going to go wrong.
Speaker 1: You will have to do some stuff, and that's where
Speaker 1: the maintenance costs come in. But yeah, hopefully it's running
Speaker 1: smoothly or running greenly, as the case may be. And
Speaker 1: just for comparison, do you have any idea what the
Speaker 1: cost of a regular roof is? I wanted to see. Oh,
Speaker 1: thank goodness, I don't have any personal experience that yet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't really eat either until this afternoon. Um, so
Speaker 1: there was a there's, of course a little handy roofing
Speaker 1: calculator online and I ran the numbers and it's so
Speaker 1: it's about for a roof that's thirty six ft by right,
Speaker 1: made from your basic asphalt jingles, you know, the black
Speaker 1: kind of sparkly jingles you see on a lot of houses.
Speaker 1: So that's gonna be roughly five dollars per square foot
Speaker 1: compared to the ten dollars to twenty dollars to even
Speaker 1: I saw forty dollars per square foot for a green roof. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's costly, but you can argue that the payment
Speaker 1: is going to come in the long term. It's just
Speaker 1: are you patient enough for that? Mm hmm return on investment? Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: they said with um at the would reflect. The main
Speaker 1: um expense in setting it up was just using a train,
Speaker 1: not a train, but using a crane to move everything
Speaker 1: up there. That the you know, the the actual materials
Speaker 1: were minuscule. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: if you don't have the funds for a green roof.
Speaker 1: Um one of the things it we came across was
Speaker 1: a white roof. Have you guys heard it is? Yeah,
Speaker 1: painted white. It's like the opposite of the stone song
Speaker 1: everyone's we have of that podcast we did on fighting asteroids. Yeah,
Speaker 1: where you just if you want to deflect an asteroid,
Speaker 1: you just painted white so that the solar radiation just
Speaker 1: s gradually pushes it off course, right right, right, So
Speaker 1: the idea behind a white roof is that, of course
Speaker 1: you paint it white and you reflect more sunlight and
Speaker 1: it can cut your energy demand during the hot months.
Speaker 1: And it's it's kind of like rubbery almost, That's what
Speaker 1: I read. So you have kind of this rubbery white
Speaker 1: stuff on your roof now that I don't know if
Speaker 1: it would fly. And this historic just drink that we're
Speaker 1: trying to build a house, and yeah, your historic districts
Speaker 1: I guess you're gonna want to go for Italy houses
Speaker 1: that at least look like they're poorly designed, right, No,
Speaker 1: like the you know, like you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: It's like they're not gonna be cool with. Like someone
Speaker 1: comes in, it's like, hey, I need to you know,
Speaker 1: I'm using this geometric design. You know, my house is
Speaker 1: gonna be made out of mud, you know, and it's
Speaker 1: it's more ecologically, uh, you know, ideal for this number reason.
Speaker 1: They're not gonna fly with that. They're gonna be like
Speaker 1: like that, that house looks stupid. Well, so we had
Speaker 1: to go for the before the Historic District Committee. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that they suggested to us, so
Speaker 1: that was passed around before we could move on in
Speaker 1: the permitting process to get this house rolling, was they
Speaker 1: thought our flat roof was going to be so ugly,
Speaker 1: so they suggested, well, why don't you just put a
Speaker 1: green roof on it to mask the ugliness, But that
Speaker 1: that's not in the budget. Yeah I don't think. So
Speaker 1: you decided to go to geodesic dome, right, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the final and then in the straw Straw Bill garage
Speaker 1: right next door, Yeah, we have a fine article on
Speaker 1: straw Bill Holmes. I want to add by Molly Edmunds.
Speaker 1: It was one of the first articles I ever did.
Speaker 1: Ed do we have one on geodesic domes. We have
Speaker 1: one on a couple of other alternative home styles. Cool.
Speaker 1: Now you should look at that podcasting. We have so
Speaker 1: many light Yeah, Like I can't even necessarily keep track
Speaker 1: of all we have. I discovered new how stuff works
Speaker 1: articles every week. I think. Yeah, so, how else are
Speaker 1: you going to benefit from a green roof if you
Speaker 1: decide to go this route, Well, the roots gonna last longer, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's just it. And it's another it's another layer of
Speaker 1: insulation as well. Yeah. So I mean it's gonna be
Speaker 1: a little cool things down, it's going to be able
Speaker 1: to insulate your house, and it's gonna give you some shade, right,
Speaker 1: And I feel like we should talk about we should
Speaker 1: quantify how much cooler are we talking? So there was
Speaker 1: one floor to study commissioned h They found that the
Speaker 1: average maximum surface temperature of a green roof was eighty
Speaker 1: six degrees fahrenheit. Meanwhile, the nearby light colored roof was
Speaker 1: a hundred and thirty four degrees fahrenheit. Right, seriously, eighty
Speaker 1: six degrees versus a hundred thirty four degrees, that's significant. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is pretty significant. Of course, I don't know how
Speaker 1: big that steady was, and but still that's a that's
Speaker 1: a that's a big difference. And also rooftop plants that
Speaker 1: they can suck up the carbon. So yeah, we like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's good. It's always nice to have another car
Speaker 1: in storehouse around. Yeah, and you get it right on
Speaker 1: top of that way. And then there's a whole stormwater
Speaker 1: runoff issue, right, so if you have a green rooftop,
Speaker 1: a lot of that water that's coming down during a storm,
Speaker 1: it's going to hang with the plants, and you know,
Speaker 1: as a bonus, it might be filtered and or absorbed
Speaker 1: by the plants instead of swirling gutters and jumping directly
Speaker 1: into a wastewater chances instead of going into the sewer.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's generating life on your roof. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: pretty sweet. Um, yeah, let's see producing energy use touched
Speaker 1: on that. You know, it's just you're more instant and
Speaker 1: more insulated, so you're gonna cut down on your heating
Speaker 1: and cooling cost and pluses that we touched on a
Speaker 1: little bit earlier. Your neighbors like might like it. I
Speaker 1: mean it has some aesthetic value, right, Yeah, it depends
Speaker 1: where you where you live, Like, what is it the
Speaker 1: Late clear Land Trust here in Atlanta, they'd be cool
Speaker 1: with green roofs. Is that the is that the hippie
Speaker 1: that's the hippie place? Yeah? Offcandler Yeah yeah yeah, where
Speaker 1: they have like the gross stuff, and they have drum circles.
Speaker 1: What's with drum circles? I like drum circles. I'm just
Speaker 1: saying that as long as they complaine play djano with
Speaker 1: their feet. Do you think they can play jangle with
Speaker 1: their feet? That they can do all kinds of things
Speaker 1: with their feet. Yeah, And as you were saying, um,
Speaker 1: the green roof actually could last you longer than a
Speaker 1: conventional roof. And then of course you have a little
Speaker 1: nice sound installation and a habitat for wildlife. Which brings
Speaker 1: me to one story that I was reading about. So
Speaker 1: there's this Virginia man that was thinking about putting a
Speaker 1: green roof on his log cabin and he wrote into
Speaker 1: the U. S. Green Building Council's Green Home Guide about
Speaker 1: you know, the wisdom of such an effort and the
Speaker 1: consultant who answered called called that idea a real expensive
Speaker 1: squirrel feeder. I was just I was just thinking about that,
Speaker 1: Like could I just put nuts all over my roof
Speaker 1: and have like a brown roof where it's just nothing
Speaker 1: but fat squirrels, right, because essentially the cabin owner isn't
Speaker 1: gonna have to worry about the urban heat island effect,
Speaker 1: you know, being a log cabin at all. I'm assuming
Speaker 1: the log cabin is some some nice patch of Virginia
Speaker 1: woods not necessarily situated in the heart of Richmond, and
Speaker 1: he's not gonna really gonna have to worry about the
Speaker 1: storm water over running the sewers. But yeah, the squirrels
Speaker 1: would definitely be down with that. But then you need
Speaker 1: like roof snakes and stuff. It just becomes a an
Speaker 1: arms race squirrel traps or you know. I know all
Speaker 1: my I know a lot about keeping squirrels out of attics,
Speaker 1: but I don't know about keeping them off of the roof,
Speaker 1: because you can keep them out of the attics by
Speaker 1: like during the winter, by like putting up some hot
Speaker 1: peppers in there, or have you tried this, Yeah, like
Speaker 1: I've I've known, like when we first moved into our house.
Speaker 1: They were hot peppers hanging up to keep squirrels out,
Speaker 1: but I didn't recognize at the time, so I took
Speaker 1: them down. And then you can like buy like these
Speaker 1: spicy powder pellet things that are they are made for
Speaker 1: you just make it too spicy for the squirrels to
Speaker 1: stand it. And your wife was talking about putting the
Speaker 1: strobe lights. Yes, that was this my my my father
Speaker 1: in law did that, I believe right, putting the strobe
Speaker 1: light in the attic and it got rid of the squirrels. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's so great because they hate disco. No, no, they
Speaker 1: hate raved music. Sorry, they might hate disco too. I
Speaker 1: don't know anything that's shiny lights. I think just because
Speaker 1: coming back Robert is it, it might be good. Um.
Speaker 1: So what's the setup here of the screen roof? You're
Speaker 1: probably wondering? Um, Yeah, like if I wanted a green
Speaker 1: roof tomorrow, could I get one? Well, let's talk about
Speaker 1: it first. Let's let's run you through some of the
Speaker 1: layers we've got going on here. So of course you
Speaker 1: have your plants, your vegetative layer, whether it's seto, whether
Speaker 1: it's grass or maybe even a tree or two. Um.
Speaker 1: But again, you're gonna have to think about the roots
Speaker 1: system here, so you're not gonna get big trees, and
Speaker 1: of course you don't want the weight of a big
Speaker 1: tree on your roof anyway. That doesn't seem so so smart.
Speaker 1: So these are gonna be smaller plants. And then you
Speaker 1: have whatever the plants are growing, and you're growing medium,
Speaker 1: and then you're gonna have a barrier, and that's going
Speaker 1: to provide stuff good stuff like drainage and aeration and
Speaker 1: water storage. And then comes your insulation, and then you
Speaker 1: have another protective layer, and then you have a roofing membrane.
Speaker 1: And lastly, and very important, you have your structural support
Speaker 1: too to bear up the whole endeavor. Ye, Like in
Speaker 1: the woodroofe case, they said that the roof of the
Speaker 1: existing building was it was a pretty green design anyway,
Speaker 1: and that it was. They said the roof was just
Speaker 1: way over engineered to begin with, so like, wait, wasn't
Speaker 1: even an issue. Really, that's pretty cool, yeah, And so
Speaker 1: one of the interesting things was you can get this
Speaker 1: in a modular system. I was reading about a green
Speaker 1: grid system that consisted of a series of pre planted
Speaker 1: modules and they're made of recycled plastics, and well, the
Speaker 1: the trays that hold the plants, not the plants. Plants
Speaker 1: aren't made out of recycled plus that would really be
Speaker 1: a good joke. And these modules can be easily placed
Speaker 1: on a roof or a different structure with the capacity
Speaker 1: for it. Well that's cool. Yeah, So business with a
Speaker 1: suitable roof, rooftop environment already, they can just start ordering
Speaker 1: these things up, right, and you're gonna you're gonna want
Speaker 1: to think about irrigation system too, depending on what kind
Speaker 1: of system you go with. Yeah, and you can also
Speaker 1: get a built in place system. But the trouble with
Speaker 1: that is that you may have to roll back vegetation
Speaker 1: if you have to troubleshoot something going wrong. God forbid,
Speaker 1: you know your roof starts leaking, or all of a
Speaker 1: sudden you s brought a route coming through one of
Speaker 1: your air events and the ceiling. That would be bad um,
Speaker 1: and you could wind up waiting a while for vegetation
Speaker 1: to grow in and be green. So the question here
Speaker 1: is can you get one? Can I outfit my house
Speaker 1: or a business with one? Heck? Yeah, but it's gonna
Speaker 1: be a little bit easier if you're building new right.
Speaker 1: It ultimately comes down to the building design to UM.
Speaker 1: If you have really steep, you know, highly pitched rooftop
Speaker 1: going on, you know, you might not be able to
Speaker 1: put planners up there. It just depends. Yeah, I probably
Speaker 1: might slide right back off right. Although they can do um,
Speaker 1: they can infect you green roofs on roofs with a
Speaker 1: slight pitch to them, like but shelving up or something,
Speaker 1: do a terracing system. I don't know. I'm not sure, okay,
Speaker 1: but the take come here is that even if you
Speaker 1: have like a more traditional, you know, Western style roof rooftop,
Speaker 1: you might be I think they can work with a
Speaker 1: slight pitch. I'm not sure that they can work with
Speaker 1: you know, the roof. You picture if you were to
Speaker 1: draw a house on a piece of paper and you
Speaker 1: need to do do that triangle roof in the square house body, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that roof is gonna work with a
Speaker 1: with a green roof unless yeah, you can go with kutzo.
Speaker 1: And the other thing is, if you're building new, you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to deal with you know, hopefully you have
Speaker 1: the funds to fund it, because like we said, this
Speaker 1: can be up to forty dollars a foot and then um,
Speaker 1: you know, getting it past your town or city officials.
Speaker 1: Maybe they haven't seen a green roof yet. Um, so
Speaker 1: that could complicate the process and in the time spent
Speaker 1: getting one existing structure. Yeah, you could do that. How
Speaker 1: much do you want it though? And do you have
Speaker 1: a flat roof? Obviously, although you can do extensive roofs.
Speaker 1: Remember extensive is the shallower, less complicated type of green roof.
Speaker 1: But you're gonna want to consult a structural engineer who's
Speaker 1: gonna be able to tell you whether your old roof
Speaker 1: is designed to handle the load of plants and you
Speaker 1: tramping across the top, And often the answers is no,
Speaker 1: it can't. So you'd have to go back and do
Speaker 1: some retrofitting. But don't lose hope because Chicago City Hall,
Speaker 1: the famous one that we're talking about with the twenty
Speaker 1: herbacious plans that covers you know, square feet of rooftop
Speaker 1: garden um, that was a retrofitted green roof. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it looks amazing. And then I wonder if you could
Speaker 1: do like a mini green roof, maybe just do part
Speaker 1: better than nothing? Yeah, yeah, totally, So we'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you guys, if you if you have a
Speaker 1: green roof or if you're thinking about implementing one, yeah,
Speaker 1: or if your your company happens to have a green
Speaker 1: roof project going on, let us know about it. You
Speaker 1: know you'd love to hear your stories. And hey, speaking
Speaker 1: of hearing your stories, do we have have a little
Speaker 1: listener mail there? We do? We do? Um. I wanted
Speaker 1: to share a couple that we received this week. First
Speaker 1: one is from Katie from Seattle and she's a new
Speaker 1: listener and Katie were to tell us some pretty cool
Speaker 1: stuff about bats. If you guys remember we did a
Speaker 1: podcast about bats and white nose syndrome a little while back,
Speaker 1: and Katie writes, I'm not sure if you've heard this,
Speaker 1: but a couple of years ago, scientists started noticing that
Speaker 1: thousands of bats were dead around wind turbines, but apparently
Speaker 1: not from impact with the blades. They discovered that the
Speaker 1: spinning of the blades causes a drop in air pressure,
Speaker 1: which effectively causes their lungs to fill with fluid, expand,
Speaker 1: and kill them, similarly to the effects of the bends
Speaker 1: have on divers. Many wind farms have since started turning
Speaker 1: off their turbines at night, when the bats are of
Speaker 1: course most active, which has greatly helped the bat population.
Speaker 1: So that's pretty interesting, Katie. I we did not, in
Speaker 1: fact come across that when we were researching the white
Speaker 1: nose syndrome and bats, so thanks for bringing that to
Speaker 1: our attention. We also heard from Matt, who apparently isn't
Speaker 1: sleeping and is instead reading Enders Game constantly. Uh, he
Speaker 1: writes a few days A few days ago, I listened
Speaker 1: to Why Science Fiction Matters, and, seeing us I'm an
Speaker 1: English major, that podcast was particularly enticing. I happened to
Speaker 1: be passing a bookstore just as I finished listening, so
Speaker 1: I stopped and I bought Enders Game. I hope you
Speaker 1: guys have all this because it it really is worthy
Speaker 1: of moving a little sleep. It's a really good book,
Speaker 1: just really really good. So Masas, I rate to thank
Speaker 1: you for recommending this book to your listeners. And I've
Speaker 1: read a heck of a lot of novels and Ender's
Speaker 1: Game is at the top of my favorites list. Awesome,
Speaker 1: Matt cool. Yeah yeah. We threw out a number of
Speaker 1: the suggestions there, so uh and and a few different
Speaker 1: comments back we may uh well not just may I
Speaker 1: think we're planning to revisit science fiction at some point
Speaker 1: in the future. We definitely will, and maybe even with
Speaker 1: a chapter on sci fi and film. What do you
Speaker 1: think about that? Maybe we'll see if you guys want
Speaker 1: to hear it. You know, we're to write a super
Speaker 1: science stuff that has to freak dot com. And hey,
Speaker 1: we are all over the social media space too, so
Speaker 1: if you haven't joined up or on Facebook, you can
Speaker 1: find us at stuff from the Science Lab and on
Speaker 1: Twitter we are lab stuff and you'll see us tweeting
Speaker 1: about different stuff. I'll tag my stuff r L, she'll
Speaker 1: tag her stuff a L, and you can just check
Speaker 1: out whatever we're talking about at the time. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: are always thinking about science, so if you write to
Speaker 1: check it out. And thanks for listening, guys. For more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, is it how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com. Want more how stuff works, check
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Speaker 1: home page.