[Closed] Green roof?

I put a sedum roof on our new kitchen. It's about 3.5m X 7m. It has two decent sized skylights that I'd say are essential for our layout. Very happy with it. Surprisingly little soil. I put down some old wool carpet as a moisture holder, then a treated wooden frame to hold the soil in place while the roots developed. Most of it was grown from found plants, cuttings, etc. It was quite patchy to start with but has filled out nicely now and it's just a sea of green.

First reply and bang in the money!
Thanks!
Our proposal is almost exactly the same size and we have 2 skylights on the drawing as a line item. So you did it yourself. Much research or just wing it?

My bike shed is a brick built extension, roughly 10ftx10ft.
Got a sedum roof on it and it's been excellent. Been up about years now.
DIY job, first foundations I've ever laid, first attempt at bricklaying, first roof I've built, etc. I just winged it, erred on the side of overbuilt if I wasn't sure of something. But then mine is smaller than yours and not really part of the house.
7" joists for me, turf roofs are heavy, but that's strong enough for twompeole to walk about on.
I've cheated a bit, it's basically a proper flat roof with a big box of plants on it, did the proper roof underneath to make certain it was watertight.
Go for it, they're great.

So you did it yourself. Much research or just wing it?

I did pretty much everything on the extension build. The wife was in charge of propagating plants. Some calculations on the joist sizes (didn't actually work out that much thicker but I sized up a little more). I read up quite a bit about drainage and reservoirs but in the end I just winged it really. We propagated the plants in trays on the roof to start with and they grew so well I wasn't that worried. The FiL had his house re-carpeted so we had a load of thick wool carpet. Its growing well. In fact we regularly take plants out to use elsewhere and it grows back nicely.

Re the skylights, even with two big ones the room we have extended (in the original house) is still quite gloomy at certain times so we couldn't be without them. The kitchen itself is wonderfully light.

Propagating
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Planting
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Growing
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I did similar to nickjb above apart from I bought the green roof stuff from sedum supplies.

Once watertight they are easy to install. My 10year and I did it in an afternoon.

The extension is great and transformed the house, but the green roof is glorious and I love watching it change colours with the seasons.

I don't think they contribute much in u value calcs, but it's been a while. They obviously add something to the mix just because of the extra mass

Do it. If you want build up details etc send me a message.

My research so far suggests the protection (UV and physical) and thermal benefits are enough to go for it.

They are not (much) of an added insulator. Wet soil doesn't keep the heat in.

They are good at moderating the effects of temperature fluctuations - that wet soil and plants absorbs a lot of heat, reducing overheating.

On balance, there is less environmental cost (of construction) to plant at ground level with all the plants, plus shrubs and trees. However, if you have no space to plant other things....

We noticed quite a difference in sound, it dropped quite a bit after installation. This was just a lightweight seduim one.

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There's mine. This thread has reminded me to order some feed for it.

Interested in this anyone got links for construction details?

Jag. Just Google image search for green roof and it returns a lot of examples.

Thanks everyone. We are getting closer to doing it. Understood re the insulation not actually contributing much but every little helps. I'm going as good as I can on insulation in the old house and the extension.
I was dead set against a flat roof and this offers some warm and fuzzys that it'll be somewhat protected.

We've got a sedum roof very much like a couple of the others up there. Only difference is that ours has a slight downwards slope to a gutter.

Make sure you check the design, construction and sealing of the roof. The person who installed ours thought that you could make something watertight with recycled corrugated plastic and membrane. He was incorrect! Now we have a full rubber jobby, but removing and then replacing a tonne of gravel, muck and sedums was not a fun job.

One tip is to line the 'tray' with carpet offcuts, then a thin layer of gravel/compost. The carpet keeps everything together while the sedum is establishing. Carpet places normally have rolls they want to give away for nowt rather than have to pay to dump them.

The other is that it is surprising how little sedum you need to colonise it. You don't need to buy great mats of the stuff to cover it complete - a few plants in every square foot will do the job.