Comments on: Urban Heat Island

By: Tori

Tori — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 03:32:06 +0000

Stuart…any chance we can get posters or prints of your work?

By: praveen k

praveen k — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 03:19:47 +0000

yes this is a wonderful reality.. please plant more trees in our home and environment.. GO GREEN….

By: stuart

stuart — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:54:22 +0000

4Grrl, it seems that green roofs can have a similar insulation effect in winter: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BPR/is_2_23/ai_n16085720/

By: turelincon

turelincon — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:05:24 +0000

The urban heat island is caused by all the heat exhausted from air conditioning systems into the air, instead of sending it into the earth as geothermal wells. Also the systems that cool the buildings themselves create heat which has to be radiated somewhere as well as they heat they’re trying to radiate. The hotter it get’s the more poorly designed air conditioning systems we purchase and install so the contractors have no incentive to rent a drilling rig to poke holes down below the gas lines.

By: 4Grrl

4Grrl — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 03:40:06 +0000

Question: In addition to insulating against heat, are green buildings also good insulators against the cold?

By: Max

Max — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:39:22 +0000

Well, nice idea, but not quite right. yes, white is a reflective color, but it doesn’t reflect all back into space, it can also reflect light onto other objects or the street, depending on its angle. Also, a dark color with the right building materials can be a nice trade-off, while it is only moderately warm during summer (depending on location, layout and materials used) it can help heat your home during winter.

The easiest way to eliminate urban heat isles is to reduce cities, but this is very eco-unfriendly, because the used surface area would increase dramatically.

Greening your city does help, but generates different problems and costs, which can be quite high compared with a supposed effect.

Green roofs is a nice idea, if you have someone who cares about the plants, otherwise they can be pretty bad stuff for the materials used in building the house.

All this greening of buildings will come with a price tag and since it is most effective with appartement buildings, it will most likely hit the poorer people of the country. Unlike mortar, plants grow and thus need a lot more care..