Source: www.greengridroofs.com
Hi, this is Amy McCullough. I am here with Jim Lindell, the national marketing director for Westin Solutions of Green Grid, Green Roof Systems, who is one of hundreds of exhibitors here at the Greenbuild 2007 Expo at McCormick Place.
Q. Can you tell me where your company is located and a little bit about what you do?
A. Sure, we are located in Vernon Hills and we also have an office in Chicago, actually offices across the country.
Q. Can you tell me about some of the advantages of green roofs and where you see them most often?
A. Certainly, there are many benefits to green roofs. We have energy benefits where we are saving energy through insulating the roof and reflecting heat from the rooftop. There are storm water benefits, where we are retaining storm water and slowing storm water runoff so we are not overloading a city’s storm water treatment facilities and in some cases a large rain event will cause those systems to be over run and they will get poured into our waterways and pollute our lakes and river and systems, so we are getting benefits there. We are extending the roof life of your water-proofing membrane, so whereas, buildings would have to replace the roof in 20 years with a green roof on there they are able to extend that by double or even triple.
Q. How long does it take for a business to recoup the money that they put into investing?
A. Sure, the numbers we are realizing now are five to seven years down the road.
Q. Have you seen a trend recently, especially with Mayor Daley promoting Green Chicago and everyone knows City Hall has the green roof, has that boosted the knowledge and the interest in the product?
A. It’s definitely boosted the knowledge and interest in our product, not just here in Chicago but more and more cities are looking at Chicago as a roadmap to doing similar things in their cities and as a result we are seeing a lot more interest in their cities as well.
Q. How has the technology changed since you started?
A. We’ve made advances in our system based on experience over that five –year period, but traditional green roofs are pretty much built the same as they have been for years. Modular systems like ours are fairly new so they are ever developing. We are seeing more and more competitors come out.
Q. Can you explain what a modular system is?
A. Sure, modular means all of our stuff is planted in basically trays, so the entire green roof system is contained in the tray. It has the tray which incorporates some water drainage features in it and it also retains some water. Then on top of that we put some soil barrier in there to keep the roots from penetrating through. Then, our engineered soil blend, and then the plants on top of that.
Q. What type of plants are typically used?
A. It depends. In what’s called an extensive system where you are just putting a green roof in for the benefits of green roof, we are using low maintenance, drought-tolerant plants so they don’t require much in the way of extra moisture so you don’t have to do any, depending on the area you planting in, like Chicago, you don’t have to do any extra irrigations. And, the maintenance of the plants themselves is very minimal. But, then we also have an extensive-style green roof, which is more like a roof top garden where you are planting more perennial types of plants, which require a lot more maintenance.
Q. Can you explain your client base to me? Are you seeing more municipalities, more corporations that are interested in this?
A. We are seeing it all across the map. We have a lot of commercial clients, we have a lot of municipal clients, and we have a lot of federal clients.
Q. Has that changed in recent years?
A. We are seeing more federal and government clients coming on board and really wanting, interest in the technology.
