Green Roof

We built an extension with a sedum roof a couple of years ago. It is flowering at the moment.

Tavascarow

Beautiful.
Very Happy

chez

Lovely. Do you have any information about how you did it? Wink

Midland Spinner

It's a Bauder roof here, Bauder gave the specs of the construction to the builder, who built the framework, then approved contractors came and laid the system which comprised: ashphalt, 3 layers of membrane, a drainage layer and the sedum turves. It wasn't difficult, mainly a question of making sure that the roof construction was strong enough for the extra weight - the engineers worked that out.

We were a bit concerned about bringing in sedum turves but they came from Norfolk, not Holland, so not too many miles away.

It wasn't cheap, we could have saved loads by just having a flat roof. But you can see the size of it... that much grey ashphalt?
Oh, and this has a 25 year guarantee compared to a 10 year for a normal flat roof. We don't regret spending the extra money, even though things are tight now, we would rather look out at this than be looking at a miserable grey expanse... As it is, I smile whenever I look out of the window, oh, and in the winter, with all the snow - it didn't melt until the stuff in the garden melted. With the old extension that this one replaced, it used to melt as soon as we put the lights on downstairs!

Our building inspector said afterwards that when the plans came across the desk she fully expected us to have just done it to greenwash our application and that in the end it would be a normal roof, so she was surprised, and pleased when we went ahead with it.

edited to add: I forgot to mention the insulation: between the layers of membrane there is a 100mm? (I think, I would have to check my notes) layer of insulation

Truffle

Looks great!

We did a DIY job on the garage using turf from creating new veggie beds- consequently, last year it was full of sunflowers (from bird-dropped seed & the wet summer) and this year there's been primroses and loads of other flowers. We've let it 'do its thing' so the plant community is slowly changing and there's also a tiny seasonal pond. Green roofs are great, would love to try a full sedum one like yours at some point.

Truffle

Midland Spinner

We had a 'normal' flat roof there before we re-built the extension. We never weeded it (it wasn't up to load bearing!) so it did collect sedum and weeds. But it also leaked, like a sieve.

This 'roofing system' has a 'drainage layer' which is like a giant pan scrubber quilted inside a calico cover, which apparently stops the plants getting waterlogged. Our old roof, with its weeds proved that sedum can grow quite happily on a normal roof, with no fancy membranes.

If you want to do your own I would say go for it, you can get kits, we looked at the option, but didn't have time to do the work, so it made sense to get the builders to do it for us. (I wish we had had time to do it ourselves, now that we have done the extension I know what I would have done differently - but isn't that always the case!)

Midland Spinner

Truffle wrote:

Any pics? And how did you do your DIY job? And the pond????

Aeolienne

This comes from Arup Environmental's website:

Apparently this is - was (as of June 2007) - on Arup's head office at 13 Fitzroy Street, London, W1T 4BQ. Can anyone see it on Google Earth?

beean

Is it possible to have a timber shed (single garage-sized) with a sedum roof or would it be so heavy that the shed would need to be designed to be very sturdy (and therefore exceptionally expensive)?

resistance is fertile

sedum roofs are not particilarly heavy at all, its not like an intensive green roof with turf.

yummersetter

any ladybirds?

http://tinyurl.com/lebql8

beean

Thanks for the reply - hurrah! I want a green roof on my new shed-thingy 9well, my as yet unbought shed thingy)

Aeolienne

Some possibly interesting linkies...

Sheffield University has a Green Roof Centre.

Green roof conference held in London, Sept 2008

CIRIA (the Construction Industry Research and Information Association) produce a biannual SUDS newsletter. The 2008 edition had a short article about green roofs. Linky

Apparently an award winning example of a green roof is Beaufort Court, Lillie Road, Fulham, London. This is a social housing development created in 2003 with sedum roofs to reduce surface water run-off and provide a visual amenity. Other examples of successful green roof projects can be found in the Mayor of London’s ‘Living Roofs: Case Studies’ document - easily found on Google.

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