In its continuing effort to go green, Ball State implementing its first — and most likely not last — Weston Solutions Green Grid roof on campus.
The green vegetative roof has been placed on top of the North District Energy Station adjacent to the Duck Pond on McKinely Avenue. The roof will help with energy efficiency and water drainage, director of Facilities Planning and Management said.
"It is not built into the actual roof system itself," he said. "It sits on top of the existing, or what is, the roof membrane."
Lowe said repairs to the actual roof, such as leaks, will not be an issue since the Green Grid is broken into recycled plastic containers of vegetation which lay on top of the original roof. Lowe said the containers came with about 2 inches of growth in them, but they will eventually grow together.
"What is supposed to happen is they bring these containers in having grown them for two or three months in some type of environmental setting," he said. "Eventually, that vegetation will grow over from one to the other so it becomes one system so to speak, but still has the capability to be broken down by container if you need to get into it and actually do repairs on the roof system."
The system at the North District Energy Station is one of two Green Grids planned for campus. The end result is two coal-fired boilers will be shut down in the fall, which will save about $1 million a year, according to the Newscenter.
Lowe said the North District Energy Station was a logical place to implement the first Green Grid because the building was built on an area that was previously just a field. The roof offers about 7,000 square feet of vegetation.
The Green Grid will filter sediments and help slow down the speed in which rain water drains into creeks and ponds to help prevent flooding.
Facilities Planning and Management is looking at other buildings, such as Teachers College, as options for additional Green Grids on campus. Lowe said it comes down to if the buildings can support the extra weight of the roof or not, and if not how many renovations will need to be made in order to carry a Green Grid.
Ball State has also implemented a roof structure on Kinghorn Hall, which is a shingle roof to create space for mechanical equipment to be stored. Lowe said the shingle roof works for residence halls because it gives them more of homey feel.
"When you look at a residential setting, the shingle pitch roof sits well," Lowe said. "When you look at an academic setting, a flat roof because we typically have mechanical systems in that location, and the green roof system would work well on those systems."
Ball State is not the first building in Muncie to implement a green roof. IU Ball Memorial Hospital implemented a similar green roof about a year and a half ago.
Even though Ball State is not the first university to install a green roof, Lowe said he likes how Ball State will benefit from the features of the Green Grid roof.
"I think lots of other universities have installed green roofs, but in a lot of locations it is the roof system, and it is actually imbedded in the roof system perhaps not a containerized," he said. "I am excited about this kind of system because containerized gives me a lot of comfort that I can not only provide a green roof, but I can also provide some capability of maintaining a green roof."
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