[HN Gopher] Can Vines Speed Urban Cooling? - UC Davis
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Can Vines Speed Urban Cooling? - UC Davis
Author : raybb
Score : 15 points
Date : 2023-08-27 19:58 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ucdavis.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ucdavis.edu)
| helph67 wrote:
| A crimson glory vine has been providing summer cooling, autumn
| (fall) colour (color) and winter warmth for many years, placed on
| the northern wall of my home.
| https://thewest.com.au/lifestyle/garden/plant-profile-crimso...
| drak0n1c wrote:
| The scaffolding described in the article will have to ensure that
| the vines do not eventually directly attach to the wall, because
| if they do and are not cleaned off regularly there can be severe
| damage to the brick and mortar, which compromises the energy
| rating and structural safety of the building.
| ip26 wrote:
| That's a species thing. Different species use either twining
| stems, tendrils, aerial roots or holdfasts. Roots are probably
| the ones you are concerned about.
| ars wrote:
| This is an urban legend that is not true.
|
| Vines with sticky pad cause no damage at all if you just leave
| them there.
|
| The ones with wrapping tendrils can try to penetrate into the
| brick, so don't plant those, but the sticky type causes zero
| damage.
|
| In fact cleaning them off would be worse because then the
| sticky pad might remove some loose material! If you do need to
| remove the plant kill it, and let it sit for a few months and
| then it will come off without removing even lose material.
| sethhochberg wrote:
| My building's condo bylaws go as far as to explicitly ban
| several species of ivy from balcony and rooftop gardens. It's a
| beautiful way to ensure you'll eventually need a new facade
| after it gets into the masonry. But I welcome any mainstream
| solutions that make the beauty and other nice side effects of
| heavy climbing plant cover available with a trusted barrier
| between it and the building underneath.
| ShakataGaNai wrote:
| The basic concept seems fairly obvious to me. At least on a small
| scale.
|
| My house is a masonry exterior with a mostly southern exposure.
| It soaks up the sun and keeps the house very very warm late into
| the evening... which is not a helpful feature when it's 90F every
| day of the summer. My plan was to do basically what they
| described here. Setup some trellis 4 ft or so some the house, and
| plant some fast-growing vines.
|
| Anything to shade the house will obviously be beneficial from a
| cooling perspective. The vines are mostly to reduce the cost of
| shading and increase the aesthetics.
|
| Now what plants are the best balance of low water usage, high
| growth, low maintenance? That's a good question and I look
| forward to seeing what UCDavis comes up with.
| abakker wrote:
| if you live in a climate that freezes, I'd recommend Hops. They
| grow like crazy and are quite beautiful in the fall.
| ars wrote:
| I have some Boston ivy completely covering 2 walls of my house.
| It's wonderful! In the summer it completely blocks the sun from
| the walls, keeping my house much cooler.
|
| And in the winter it falls off letting the sun in to help with
| heating.
|
| The side of the house that isn't covered (yet) is noticeably
| warmer.
|
| The only maintenance is opening windows and pushing away any
| vines that want to cover the windows, and once a year making sure
| no vines got in the gutters. (A tip: Don't cut the vines by the
| window, but rather pull them off and let them hang loose - this
| signals to the plant that it's at an "edge" and it won't try to
| grow more in that direction.)
| shonenknifefan1 wrote:
| How do vines attached to a building affect fire risk for that
| building?
| ars wrote:
| [delayed]
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(page generated 2023-08-27 23:00 UTC)