Of all the things involved with building a house the one that has changed the least is the roofing more specifically what the roofing material is made of and how it is attached. The nails and/or staples destroy the sheathing, allow water and air to enter and prevent the underside of the deck from being used for energy capture since piping would be destroyed by reroofing.
It is time to change at least how the roofing material is attached if not the roofing material itself. What I propose as an intermediate step is coating the back of metal or fiberglass roofing material and the roof membrane with a plastic material and ultrasonically welding the roofing material down. You might think how strong of a bond can that be?
Well you ever try and open plastic packing that is tightly welded? This would be stronger, yet could be removed with a hot wire scrapper to prep the surface for reroofing. If it is possible it would be smarter to add something to the plastic that would destroy the bond if exposed to a second ultrasonic treatment, just to make removal and surface prep easier.
Once the ultrasonic technology proves itself in the field the actual roofing could change to plastics or thin film solar cells with addition ultrasonic spot welds used to make the circuit. The plastics could have vacuum insulation or phase change materials in them better control the thermal uptake and output of the structure. Or in the ulimate green roofing stratagy the panels could have 100+ micron gaps filled with filtered nutrient rich waste water, aerated with CO2 rich air from the house or furnace and algae to make hydrogen or methane for using in microgeneration. Plus you get lots of hot gray water for heat and watering the lawn. All of this could be made possible by not have to nail the roofing material down.
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