Environmentally-Friendly roofing options

While people are paying more and more attention to the effects that our actions have on the environment, environmentally friendly roofing options do a lot more than just save nature. Each system is an improvement on past products and comes with its own advantages.


Cool Roofs

Cool roofs are made to not heat up as much as other roofs, heating only 5-14 degrees Celsius above surrounding air temperature. They also improve the efficiency of your insulation and reduce the energy demands of your electric cooling by up to 10 percent on hot days.

Even on days that are not necessarily hot but are sunny, cool roofs provide energy savings. All of the energy savings from reducing demand on your cooling system results in decreased air pollution and greenhouse gasses meaning your roof is more environmentally friendly while saving you money at the same time.

Here at Northern Seal, we almost always install cool roofs when replacing older roofing materials. Our favorite product to work with is TPO (or more correctly, FTPO, Flexible Thermo Polyolefin) which is currently the industry’s leading roofing product. Gross sales of FTPO products in the U.S. currently exceeds all other roofing products combined.

This is because it has no plasticisers and has been made closer to rubber but with better seam, puncture and tear strength. It is 100% recyclable where facilities exist and is one of the safer roofing materials to install both for your flat roofer and your building because it uses a hot air welder instead of open flame welder.


Recyclable Single-Ply membranes

Single-ply membranes are now recyclable where facilities exist, and many manufacturers like Firestone and Duralast will take back their used membranes and recycle them in their own facilities, grinding them down to be used as backing or walkway material.


Solar Projects

Solar projects are an excellent way to reduce strain on the power grid, reduce the cost of your own power and make a little extra money. It is a renewable source of energy that doesn’t contribute to air or noise pollution and solar panels can be installed on your roof without affecting the use of your building.

Solar projects rely on the energy of the sun to produce power that will be used first in your own building and then any extra can be sold to your local energy provider to reduce their need to rely on other, more harmful forms of power.

Additionally, the times that you produce the most power are the times that the strain on the grid is the highest (hot, sunny days), meaning that you feeding into the grid relieves need to rely on more detrimental forms of energy.

Now with the Ontario Power Authority’s feed-in-tariff program solar installations are becoming more and more sure of an investment and are becoming realistic options for more and more people.


Green Roofs

Green roofs, while uncommon, are an excellent way to help the environment. Not only do they help with the insulation of your building, but with more and more paved spaces in cities, water run-off is becoming a bigger and bigger issue for city planners to account for.

While rainwater used to be able to sink into the ground it is now running almost exclusively to sewers and systems are having to manage increasing amounts of water. Green roofs allow rainwater time to sink into the growing medium, usually without excess runoff.

Additionally, green roofs provide habitats for birds and pollinating insects. They can be intensive or extensive, the difference being the use and care you intend to put into the maintenance of the greenery. Intensive green roofs are areas that you maintain with larger plants, essentially a garden on a roof. Extensive green roofs are much lower maintenance and are often left to self-propagate and grow wild after the first planting.


Final Note

Going green is the way of the future. Through cool roofs, solar projects or green roofs you can help our communities to become more sustainable while still obtaining economic benefits.

Here at Northern Seal we work with high quality products that have been tested and proven to be environmentally responsible and the best products for the job. It no longer has to be a sacrifice to go green, you can have it all, the durability and sustainability all while cutting your energy costs.

Call Northern Seal today to discuss how you can implement environmentally friendly roofing options on your building.