Artificial grass has many advantages, but its capacity to store thermal energy is not one of them. Synthetic lawns get too hot to be safe and comfortable according to the study of researchers from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and the Desert Research Institute (DRI) done in 2006 and 2007. Please, pay attention to the latter. Back in 2006, we had George W. Bush for a president of the United States. .
How much do you remember about 2006? Five meters long Northern bottlenose whale lost in the River Thames made Londoners think they are hallucinating. Mumbai train bombing left 209 dead, the video of Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein's execution was leaked into the media, and the shockumentary Borat was getting high-fives almost all-around for being offensive in the funniest possible way. The same time, Google purchases YouTube for 1.65 billion dollars, and municipalities were warned of "potential overheating of synthetic turf in parks and athletic fields in the hottest and dryer state in America to keep a watch of recreational use of synthetic fields during hot summer months." The world was a very different place a decade ago.
In 2006, you couldn't order an Uber; you couldn't surf the web with Google Chrome, one-year-old Movoto didn't make it yet to the big house market. We didn't have an iPad, Kickstarter, and Instagram! Pinterest was founded four years later in March 2010. One of those incredible innovations of the decade was synthetic grass repurposed from big and expensive commercial applications to residential lawns, playgrounds, and places of everyday use that anyone can afford.
Before 2009, when Global Syn-Turf entered a synthetic grass marketplace, artificial grass was a plaything for the rich, most often used in sports stadiums. Global Syn-Turf was determined to build a reliable and affordable surface the average American householder could afford. While other manufacturers were content to target the well-to-do, Global Syn-Turf developed a design and a method to manufacture turf that steadily reduced the costs across the country. Instead of pocketing the profits, the company held its grounds on low pricing, transforming synthetic turf from a luxury home-improvement product to a mainstay of American society.
Central to Global Syn-Turf capacity to produce millions of square feet of the high-quality artificial grass every year was the development of technology that decreased setbacks and inefficiencies subsisted on the synthetic grass industry arena before. More than ten different types of synthetic turf blades were introduced to the market offering solutions for turf to withhold heavy traffic without losing resiliency, to prevent the impact of fall injuries using organic natural infill and shock-pads products, and several technologies to keep turf cool during hot summer months.
Actually, it took more than four years to develop installation methodology and ideal combinations of the pile height, the face weight, and the turf blade shapes to offer synthetic grass options that fit consumer's lifestyle and functional purpose of turf use. It meant new manufacturing requirements and procedures so that we can get a better, less hot, more resilient, and cheaper turf.
By the summer of 2018, the new T-Cool synthetic grass technology was introduced to the market. Testing and experimentation show incredible results of new T-Cool infill in hot and dry climates. Before the application, in 88 degrees Fahrenheit, 43% humidity Los Angeles weather, turf gets as hot as 128 degrees. After T-Cool application, the turf temperature instantly decreases to 98 degrees. The results vary in different settings and climates, but on average, the temperature difference is approximately 50 degrees.
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For most communities, the turf's thermal buildup is a comfort rather than a safety issue. If you apply a regular turf infill as silica or green sand, it might be too hot to walk on the surface if the outdoor temperature reaches 134 degrees (the highest air temperature registered on Earth.) According to statistics, Global Syn-Turf grass installed in the hottest parts of Nevada and Arizona doesn't raise a red flag of overheating; there are no reports of thermal injuries with residential synthetic turf applications. The slowly, but surely publicly recognized potential of artificial grass to save money and reduce water use changed the way we used to think about our lawns. Aka solar panels, synthetic turf became one of the latest environmentally sustainable trends in the home-improvement industry market; the part of it that is considered the most rapidly growing niche nationwide.
According to the later RMI (NAHB Remodeling Market Index), homeowners today are leaning towards energy-efficient home upgrades. Low-energy windows, LED lighting, high-efficiency HVAC systems, solar panels, smart home technology, including connected thermostats. Artificial grass is one of those eco-friendly upgrades because it helps to save water, to prevent abusive use of fertilizers and to limit air pollution caused by lawn machinery such as gas-powered lawn mowers. With more than four million residential synthetic turf installations nationwide, it is increasingly important for contractors, big retailers, and real estate professionals to assess the full value of lawn modifications. With more homeowners doing synthetic lawns, backyard playgrounds, and private golf courses, turf installations are growing rapidly. Plus, now that Baby Boomers are getting older, having zero-maintenance lawns are picking upstream.
Taking into consideration the current state of the home-improvement industry and ecological conditions, the spendings will continue to increase. Higher mortgage rates will most likely cause additional spending boosts, as homeowners today more often choose to fix their home rather than move on and give up those low rates that locked in back in 2016-2017. With Millennials who continue to take on fixer-uppers, and upgrade their parent's generation homes in bite-size pieces, artificial grass installation that saves money in the long-term becomes a more appealing option.
The appreciation of the long-term savings and ecologically friendly products is happening despite a softening economy and a decrease in real-estate values. Various generations of homeowners realize it far outweighs upfront costs. People are willing to pay more for products that reduce energy spendings, and more than eighty-six percent of homeowners are acknowledged about environmentally friendly and cost-efficient merchandises, and this factor alone is a key in the hiring a professional remodeler, contractor, or a builder. For home-improvement and landscape companies, as you long as they stay with the green trends and the latest green products, the increasing product prices are not expected to affect the overall profit margins.
