The construction of large city centre buildings is a familiar sight here in Leeds, whether they are new offices or residential. But while this may transform the cityscape, new designs need to take into account a changing climate.
Over the last few months, the weather has been notably hot and dry as the UK experienced its hottest summer on record, but it may not remain like this for long as autumn kicks in and winter approaches.
Indeed, as the weather cools, all that evaporated water may bring heavy rain and that can bring flash flooding in big cities without lots of grass to soak up rain. However, buildings, especially large ones with a lot of roof space, can help by harvesting rainwater instead of it spilling over onto the streets below.
Box profile roofing sheets can help with this, as the shape helps funnel water and this can enable it to run off into a water collection system. Not only can this be very useful in heavy rain, but it can efficiently collect what little rain there is in dry spells.
Metal roofing is ideal for this, as it does not soak up rainwater in the way that other materials can, leaving almost all of it running off into the system.
Of course, even with the right shape and materials, box profile roofing needs to be accompanied by a system of pipes to take the water down into storage tanks, so a whole system is needed. But everything starts with the roof.
This system not only helps prevent flash flooding in urbanised areas, but also means that grey water can be collected. This is rainwater that, left untreated, is not clean enough to be potable, but can be stored and later used in flush toilets, thus ensuring they use less water from the mains and therefore make less demands on the mains supplies.
The hot and dry days of summer may soon give way to cold and rain, but the right roofing on large buildings could help provide an efficient way of responding to and using increasingly inconsistent rainfall.