The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Smallholding => Buildings & planning => Topic started by: Ghdp on December 30, 2017, 07:12:08 pm
-
We are planning to build a new first floor holiday let unit close to our house. It is only marginally beyond the ‘daydream phase’ but will involve demolishing and rebuilding two car ports, a workshop and a woodshed, all of which fall into the category of ‘eyesores’. If we do this properly we think we could get the lower ground floor space we need, an income we would appreciate (!) and substantially improve the look of our entire plot.
We do not know what our local planners would make of the idea yet but were wondering about sedum roofing. The single pitched roof will be facing south west on one side and north east on the other. We are at a relatively exposed site 600 feet above sea level.
Anyone have experiences, good or bad, that will help our deliberations.
-
Hmm no enthusiasm for green roofs then!
-
Plenty of enthusiasm....wasn't sure if your question was specifically about planners about which I cannot comment. As to the roof, we did one on our shed several years ago and I love it. We used sedum, with seeds from Jellico. Used a mixture of garden soil and vermiculite (bought the stuff used as insulation). This helps the water retention and also makes it lighter as the right soil depth to get enough water retention would be too heavy. As it was just a shed roof used propylene sheet as the base layer, old carpet to hold the moisture old carpet then topped with the vermiculite/ soil layer.
However if you cost it using all the professional proprietary builder layer materials it is not a cheap way of doing a roof.
-
Thanks! Sorry, my original post was not clear. I was really seeking views on the roof itself. I think I can see why it could be a very good idea so I suppose i want to know if there are particular problems ( maintenance for eg.) that have been experienced on this forum and I need to consider)
-
There are plenty of examples of very large industrial buildings with sedum roofs now. I am thinking, for example, of the old ferry port buildings in Ramsgate these are huge and look way better than a steel roof as overlooked from the western promenade. Regarding maintenance I get on mine about once a year to remove the odd weed. Otherwise it is all about the quality of materials and workmanship.