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Garage green roofs / wildflowers


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A comment from the planning officer on my proposals, is that we may want to consider having a green roof on the flat roof on a garage.

 

Personally i don't want to do it as it it seems like a faff / increased cost, but the more i think about it, it might be night to have it green with a load of wild flowers up there (for the insects and bees etc).

 

Can anyone advise on the pit falls of doing a green roof on a standard single garage over felt? my main concern is the overall loading of the roof construction, and if i don't have to do it, is it going to be a complete ball ache.

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Our planning was for a green roof....planners love them it ticks all sorts of green policy boxes, we went with it to get through but went back afterwards with an nma to change it.  I have never seen a green roof that looks half decent after a few years. Its not a wild flower meadow on the roof.  You don't use soil and seeds its a special sort of ‘mat’ often a type of sedum. They can look really ugly and brown and shrivelled in hot weather. Things dropped by birds do seed up there too, they are not maintenance free.  You need a different type of construction for a green roof it needs planning in and is not cheap to do......as you can tell I am not a fan!

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1 hour ago, Moonshine said:

A comment from the planning officer on my proposals, is that we may want to consider having a green roof on the flat roof on a garage.

 

Personally i don't want to do it as it it seems like a faff / increased cost, but the more i think about it, it might be night to have it green with a load of wild flowers up there (for the insects and bees etc).

 

Can anyone advise on the pit falls of doing a green roof on a standard single garage over felt? my main concern is the overall loading of the roof construction, and if i don't have to do it, is it going to be a complete ball ache.

 

A friend of mine has a green roof - EPDM single ply membrane as the waterproof layer, sand soil mix then turfed with 'grass' stripped from a maritime location (low growing).  Pitched roof, but trusses had to be substantially beefed up to cope with the weight (it's the max weight when wet / loaded with snow that's important).  His doesn't require much ongoing maintenance but it isn't a wildflower roof.  Currently the grass is yellowing as we have not had rain for a while (well we do now).

 

Personally I wouldn't even consider it on a felt roof.

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We had two green roofs on the new school I worked in.  No one told us it needed to be watered during the first year when we had a very hot summer - it died!

They tried to blame us in the school for not doing the watering until we pointed out that there was no means of getting water to the roof!  Carrying watering cans up one flight of internal stairs, one external ladder, across 40ft of roof, up another small external ladder and you reach the nearest part of the sedum to empty what is left in the watering can could become a full time job!

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We are having a crazy long drought at the moment and my green roof is 99% dead ! Rain is due at the weekend so it should bounce back to life, it’s not a pro roof but it does work well as a noice reducer and keeps the cabin nice and cool in the summer heat. 

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My council has mandated a green roof on my forthcoming build for stormwater drainage reasons. I have chosen the simplest option. A sedum roof using a system of trays and mats. In my case the roof won't be visible, only my neighbours will see it.

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2 hours ago, Dreadnaught said:

My council has mandated a green roof on my forthcoming build for stormwater drainage reasons. I have chosen the simplest option. A sedum roof using a system of trays and mats. In my case the roof won't be visible, only my neighbours will see it.

They did exactly that to us for the same reasons.  We went back afterwards with an NMA to change to single ply membrane lead colour, got ok from neighbour too.  We showed we could deal with run off water without overloading the drainage system, luckily we had a field and a ditch behind us to take the run off.

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