[Strawbale] Strawbale Digest, Vol 5, Issue 15

[Rene Dalmeijer]

Heidi,

Have a look at my website www.strobouw.nl go via english to SB houses 
and then IJburg if you click on the accompanying thumbnail you will se 
some pictures of a living roof.

Making a living roof is relatively easy basically what you have to do 
is to make sure the green (plants) has sufficient water year round to 
survive. This means the plants, most suitable are sedum, should be 
quite hardy enough o be able to survive a dry spell. In many cases this 
means that the roof should drain quite well otherwise conditions will 
be too wet most of the time for plants like sedum.

basic buildup from top to bottom:

sedum mats or separate plants ( at least one every 6")
substrate at least 3" ( a little earth, humus, and if you want a light 
roof something like perlite, expanded clay pellets
non woven mat like carpet underfelt
EPDM rubber membrane this is the water barrier
again carpet underfelt
insulation
dekking

Grases also work but it does depend on the climate if you have to water 
lawns to keep grass from turning brown forget grass it will not work.

The main thing is to find a good source for sedum plants all the other 
materials are relatively easy to source I expect almost everywhere in 
the developed world.

Rene
On Nov 24, 2006, at 19:00, strawbale-request at listserv.repp.org wrote:

> From: Heidi Wordhouse-Dykema <heidi at dykema.net>
> Subject: [Strawbale] OT:  Living Roof (on strawbale) - advice?
> To: <strawbale at listserv.repp.org>
> Message-ID: <2006112464133.141141 at jehosophat>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> I've got to build a metalworking shop on my land on the mountain, and 
> fast.  (recently and unexpectedly moved up there full-time!)
>
> I'm hoping to build a living roof with strawbale infill (yeah, I'd 
> prefer loadbearing, but it's raining cats and dogs up here, there 
> isn't even a foundation yet, and there's no chance of getting a 
> concrete truck in here for a fast pour, so can everyone say Pole 
> Building?)  (unless someone else has a better idea or wants to help me 
> fill some bags for a tamped-earthbag perimeter foundation, in the next 
> week or two...)
>
> I've never built a living roof before and am having trouble finding 
> quality info on the net, but figured someone on this list'll have 
> built a good living roof - or could point to their mistakes so I can 
> leapfrog over 'em.
>
> It's not strictly strawbale, so taking it offlist is hunkydory.