Estalki putzudunaren abantaila jasangarriak

Abstract

Roof pond is commonly used in countries with dry climates. As a result, it is not strange that the most important research on this subject has been performed in India, the USA and Israel. However, in the last century, roof pond was widely used in buildings in the Basque Country, mainly in industrial environments. Today, nevertheless, it is hardly used. Why roof pond was so much used in a wet country like ours? In this article, we have tried to answer this question by addressing the characteristics, advantages and problems of roof pond. To begin with, we present several classifications of roofs to better understand the characteristics of the roof pond. We briefly cover the history of roof pond, focusing on examples from the Basque Country (especially from Arrasate). Roof pond has important advantages in improving the passive thermal management of the building. On the one hand, the inertia and thermal insulation of the building is increased improving the living environment inside. On the other hand, the building can be cooled or heated using a variety of methods that use a roof pond. Roof pond also offers other advantages, such as being sustainable and having benefits from an ecological point of view. And, of course, it also has some disadvantages: dirt can accumulate, it needs maintenance, and the structure of the building needs to be stronger to pick up the water load. To conclude, we present several international examples to shed light on current uses of roof pond. In short, although it has some problems, roof pond is still interesting in today's buildings and could be beneficial in some buildings in the Basque Country.