CHARLOTTESVILLE -- Albemarle County's three-year-old green roof is becoming a hot attraction.

Hundreds of visitors including representatives of cities and counties, architectural students, builders, private homeowners and schoolchildren are now taking tours of the unique roof each year, said Lee Catlin, a spokeswoman for the county.

"We're finding that the green roof is turning into a kind of learning lab,'' said Catlin. "It's been a great demonstration project that's inspiring people to do the same thing.''

"The roof takes an out-there technology and makes it very real for people,'' she said.

The green roof is atop the Albemarle County Office Building in downtown Charlottesville covering what was once a 9,000-square-foot, tar-and-gravel roof. The green roof is planted with a groundcover of Shale Barrens, Dragon's Blood, Blue Spruce and Jellybean varieties of sedum.

Throughout Virginia, such roofs are being planted in a fledgling movement to add green space where there was none before. A green roof is simply plants on top of a roof covered with protective layers and soil.

The green roof is also saving money. Though Catlin didn't have any hard numbers to back up what is touted as the energy-saving virtues of the green roof, she did have temperature ranges.

Catlin said that in June, the green roof was on average 15 degrees cooler than an adjacent conventional roof. In February, the green roof was on average 12 to 15 degrees warmer than the adjacent conventional roof.

Runoff measurements indicate that up to half an inch of water is retained during rainstorms. That water, which would become polluted as it ran over parking lots and culverts, would otherwise discharge into streams.
Contact Carlos Santos at (434) 295-9542 or csantos@timesdispatch.com.