We are designing a building with a "garden lounge" on the roof. The roof will have 3 large canopy trees that will shade a significant portion of the roof. The project is in South Florida so the trees will hold their leaves year round and provide shade year round. Can we count this shaded area, similar to the way we count shade in non-roof, for credit compliance? It appears we are meeting the intent of the credit and will be reducing the heat island from the roof surface.

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Susan Walter

HDR

LEEDuser Expert

894 thumbs up

Wed, 06/29/2011 - 19:47

I think you'll have a problem with the reviewers because the trees can't be considered permanent so I don't think you can count in as shade.

Rob Hink

Principal, LEED Faculty

The Spinnaker Group

LEEDuser Basic Member

49 thumbs up

Sat, 07/02/2011 - 01:21

Susan, Thanks for your answer and I can see the logic side of that argument but couldn't the same be true for non-roof heat island where you are encouraged to use trees for shading. These wil be large canopy trees with 6' of planting medium.

Susann Geithner

Principal

Emerald Built Environments

LEEDuser Basic Member

900 thumbs up

Tue, 07/05/2011 - 17:20

Judging by the intent for the credit you can argue as Robert did. But the difference of roof vs. non-roof is that a roof above conditioned spaces certainly needs more attention to reduce heat gain since this directly impact your cooling demand in the building. That being said I can see that there needs to be more stringent and permanent measures to reduce heat-island effect on a roof. Also looking through the CIR's on those credits, I think that you probably will have a hard time to argue just with shading by trees.

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