No abstract

; 2-32-1 Ogawa Kodaira-shi, Tokyo 3) Ibaraki Polytechnic Center; 591 Aza Manadare, Mitsukaido-koya-machi, Joso City, Ibaraki 4) Tombow Co., Ltd.; Kameido 2-33-1, Kotou-ku, Tokyo 5) Aomori Prefectural Industrial Technology Research Center; Daini-Tonya-machi 4-11-6, Aomori-shi, Aomori,The concept of greening is well understood and is now widely applied to commercial facilities and office buildings. However, greening requires the use of specific waterproof materials and construction methods, which makes it costly. Therefore, greening is seldom used in general residential houses.In this study, flower mats made of garden greening fabric were used to study the effects of roof and wall greening on two mimic houses. The material was obtained by recycling discarded cloth used for school uniforms and was effective for garden greening. The temperature in a mimic house to which greening was applied was approximately 1ºC lower than in a similar house without greening; i.e., greening had an insulating effect. Therefore, greening is predicted to shorten the time required for running air conditioners. A polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) sponge was added to half of the greening mats placed on the roof and water (2 ℓ per m 2 of the roof area) was sprayed on all the greening mats once a day. The sponges improved moisture retention and the plants grown with these sponges showed stronger growth than plants grown without the sponges. The greening of buildings can be easily achieved at low cost by using flower mats made of garden greening fabric. The mats are lightweight, so the load of the flower mats on the building is small and greening can be accomplished without large-scale installation requirements. Flower mats therefore appear to be quite useful for greening of conventional residential houses.