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If you remember last year I did some tests on different colour and material roof coverings http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=5643&page=1 I thought at the time it would be interesting to to make a small model of a 'green roof'. Well Day before yesterday I got my temperature loggers back and made a couple of roof sections. One is just a black time and the other is a black tile with compost and grass seed on it. Both have a couple of loggers inside the polystyrene box and there is a 5th one under the bench for ambient data. Solar radiation, humidity, windspeed and all that weather data I shall collect at the end of the test from my friendly local weather station. Just to make it interesting I have popped a webcam in the shed and time-lapse ever 15 minutes, so if you want to see the grass grow, click here for all the individual pictures of my back garden. http://www.4shared.com/dir/qaYyPYeP/_online.html Could be a long evening
Anyone like to make a guess at what will happen over the next week to ten days while the grass starts to grow and what impact it may have when fully grown?
You better hope it starts raining! Had abit tonight - right on time for the bank holiday - beginning to think the mass influx of visitors brings more dust into the county and hence rain....
I have a dilemma there, should I water it or let it happen naturally and as this is Cornwall, it will rain soon enough, maybe I should delay the test till the last 2 weeks of July, all of August and first 2 weeks of September, getting my tan in early this year
Grass is growing nicely, I did give it a bit of water at the beginning, not needed in the last week though. Webcam now shows date and time (and the occasional visitor)
Charlotte Works fine from my end, even when I am not logged in. Shall try it when I am somewhere else and see if there is a problem. It is not that exciting though. Or did you mean the link to the Science Daily article?
Edit Changed the link, it was going though my google feed.
Is a bit windy here tonight, Been out taking pictures of waves hitting the pier.
ST, yes meant Science Daily article - I've got planning for 60m2 monopitch south facing green roof, no shade. Debating whether to go for amendment to slate so can take pv. Will decide after completing research/questioning conscience etc.
Go for the PV, it will save more CO2, unburnt fossil fuels or biomass are therefore sequestration, will probably work as well for keeping the temperature down (see original thread) and you may earn a bit too.
Have some results at last. The grass started growing beginning of Week 19, so took 2 weeks to start and we are now towards the end of Week 20 From this small test all I can really conclude (other than I need thousands for a research project) is that the soil makes the difference rather than the grass. Grass does have other contributions to make, mainly looks and as a soil binder. This initial conclusion may change if we have a spell of hot weather again and the soil dries out, but as this is not a lab experiment (why I need the thousands) I am at the mercy of the weather. The main things to note on the chart are the difference between Ambient, Tile and Grass Temperature (the 3 lines) and how stable the coefficient is (the points). The soil/grass combination does seem to limit the temperature to ambient (a good thing) whereas the the tile alone allows the temperature to rise between 2 and 4 degrees above ambient on average. This chart does only show weekly means. I do have other charts that show down to the hourly level, but still working on them so not ready for publication yet.
I have also created a movie from my snap shots, just waiting for that to upload so shall post the link when it is done (superfast rural broadband isn't, must be why this is one of the poorest areas in the EU), oddly enough the video camera seems to have stuck on one image both times I was entertaining myself in the garden, strange that: http://www.4shared.com/video/5QXwoD9k/Grass_Growing_Week_17_to_20.html
Should add that the mean coefficient is 1.2 for the tile and 1 (parity) for the grass, so whatever the mean ambient temperature is multiply it by the coefficient to get the predicted roof void temperature.