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Make a normal flat or sloped roof into a beautiful living garden.
While redeveloping our house we decided to install a living roof on our kitchen roof, why you ask.. well..:
1. I liked the idea of having a bit more greenery in the property (we live in central London)
2. We wanted somewhere for some wildlife to have (bees etc)
3. Insulation - green roofs are brilliant at insulating, both keeping heat in and cold out
Read on for how we did this
* As usual and mentioned millions of times on here - I take no responsibility for anyone following this and any maiming, death or damage which follows; nor world war or anything else :)
While redeveloping our house we decided to install a living roof on our kitchen roof, why you ask.. well..:
1. I liked the idea of having a bit more greenery in the property (we live in central London)
2. We wanted somewhere for some wildlife to have (bees etc)
3. Insulation - green roofs are brilliant at insulating, both keeping heat in and cold out
Read on for how we did this
* As usual and mentioned millions of times on here - I take no responsibility for anyone following this and any maiming, death or damage which follows; nor world war or anything else :)
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After doing quite a bit of reading on the Internet, ok well an afternoon or so, I soon realised that there isn't a step by step instruction for building a roof garden, just lots of greenies saying how good they are, and lots of companies trying to sell you expensive stuff to do it - so i thought I'd give it a go myself.
Before putting anything on a roof you need to make sure its strong, very strong.
As we'd just had this roof made we ensured we'd had is strengthened - there are 10 joists under the roof, each bolted next to another joist and supported by a steel frame at either end - so its super strong just to be sure.
I found online is that living roofs can weight anything up to 150KG per SqM, so I asked our builder and engineer to work to a dead weight of 150KG - whats a 'dead weight' I hear you ask - well.. thats the weight it'll be when there is just itself up there, a live weight is stuff like water (rain), snow or the bloke on a ladder trying to install a satellite dish.
All set? Roof ready, then read on!
Before putting anything on a roof you need to make sure its strong, very strong.
As we'd just had this roof made we ensured we'd had is strengthened - there are 10 joists under the roof, each bolted next to another joist and supported by a steel frame at either end - so its super strong just to be sure.
I found online is that living roofs can weight anything up to 150KG per SqM, so I asked our builder and engineer to work to a dead weight of 150KG - whats a 'dead weight' I hear you ask - well.. thats the weight it'll be when there is just itself up there, a live weight is stuff like water (rain), snow or the bloke on a ladder trying to install a satellite dish.
All set? Roof ready, then read on!
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For the moisture blanket (I think you called it) you could have recycled some old used carpeting. The synthetic fibers won't rot away, and anybody that has had a water leak knows how much water carpet can hold ;-)
it gets pretty cold here these days with snow for a few weeks at least.
The reason for not needing it is because the garden itself is such a good insulator. The local government officer could not work out the BTU figure for the living roof so insisted on the additional protection that he was able to calculate for.
Below the garden is the 2inch thick foam, then a roof void which is also stuffed with fibre glass. In winter its nice and toasty :)
http://www.jjanthony.com/kudzu/images/kudzucabin-h.jpg
Only joking, well done, I am sure it will look great in a few years!
(this was a joke) (I love bees, my Aunt was a bee-I miss her)
thanks for the comment! I did think about a number of alternative plants for the roof however as the substrate is pretty thin (because of the weight) and also it needs to be as maintenance free as possible (ie no weeding, no turning, no compost ) which was the reason we went with more rocky/hardy plants.
Creepers would look cool but would likely start to invade the building, this is why there are stones around the edge to really keep the garden in its place
tx
Will
http://www.uglgrads.com/corpsr_greenroofsystem.php
I budgeted for twice the dead load for rain and also snow, that was why the original beams were doubled and bolted together to make sure it was super super strong!
The wood and time was pretty cheap so I went overkill for safteys sake
There are likely some local wildflower seed varieties you might be able to obtain from your local nursery. If not, hop online and find a seed share and connect with them for local, indigenous seeds.