Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Green Roof for Your Garden Shed

Like a lot of you out there, I wish I could put a green roof on my house. The benefits of green roofs are many including reducing urban heat effects, stormwater runoff, and curbing your carbon footprint. They are also, let’s just be honest, incredibly cool. I have visited homes with green roofs installed and left with a longing to implement this green tool in my own life. Sadly, my home was constructed in the 1950’s, and would require substantial and costly reinforcements to support the additional weight associated with a green roof.



So I was thrilled with a recent discovery that may allow us to implement the idea on a much smaller scale. We have been in need of a garden shed for some time and I have been loathe to purchase a plastic or metal monstrosity. I had decided to construct my own and was looking at my options for roofing when I stumbled on a green roof idea for, you guessed it, a garden shed. Not only is this a wonderfully attractive option, it also fits well with the overall “green” theme of our home and yardscape. Installing a green roof in this manner also turns out to be a much more cost-effective option than traditional shingles or metal roofing. The basic green roof structure involves stapling a PVC or plastic lining onto the wood roofing materials and creating a box structure out of 2 x 4’s to hold the greenroof substrate in place. I would love to plant our garden shed greenroof with native Florida plants and ferns. Not only would it be a great way to reduce impervious surface associated with our home, it would be a wonderfully attractive place to store our electric lawn mower.

See the link below for more information on this project.
http://www.greenroofs.com/projects/pview.php?id=455