a view from the sky trenches

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w from the Sky Trenches http://www.greenroofs.com/sky_trenches.h

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This garage decided not to wait for humans,grants, or incentives - just the perfect set ofclimatic conditions, etc., and it developed itsown green roof. Moss grew spontaneously

on this roof -completely the result of neglect.The implication being that green roofs aregoing to happen with or without us so we

might as well help out the process.Examining these kinds of things closely can

teach you a great deal about how greenroofs operate.

A View from the Sky TrenchesAugust 2005

Green Roof Activism or We are All Bozos on This Bus.Firesign Theatre

By Patrick CareyAll Photos Courtesy Patrick Carey unless otherwise noted.

On the one hand green roofs are the fastest growing segment ofthe roofing market. On the other they are microscopic in terms ofpublic familiarity and widespread use. We wait. We wait for thedefinitive book that will describe exactly how to design and build

one that is perfect, tell us exactly how much it will cost, and exactly how it will behave overthe 40-60+ year life span. We wait for the studies to come out on storm water, thermalperformance, etc. We wait for our neighbor down the street to get one first. We wait forenough of them to be built so that we can take tours of all of them and see for ourselveswhat the pictures and words are all about. We wait while the Germans and Japanese makeit a standard of construction. We wait while the trades in other countries learn to actually talkto each other. We wait for the incentive programs and the grants. We wait to overcome ourunspoken fears.

I cant help but wonder if there isnt somepsycho-pathology at work. This roofing approachhas been around since ancient Iraq. The modernevolution of it has been around since the late1970s. At some mysterious point enoughadventurous people will just spontaneously startbuilding green roofs and that will be thebeginning of the sea of change. This hasnthappened yet.

But there are signs. D.C. Greenworks in

Washington, D.C., Northwest EcoBuilding Guildin Seattle, Ecoroofs Everywhere in Portland, OR,and other experimenters and advocates inChicago, Minneapolis, New York, Vancouver,B.C., and Austin, Texas are throwing up greenroofs. Some leak, some have all the plants die,some work beautifully, some would make agreen roof designer cringe or a roofer shakehis/her head. But they are going up. When theyscrew up, the next ones are better. When theywork, they are replicated. When there is nomoney, they make them small. When there ismoney, they get larger.

Its all happening now and accelerating. So here are some examples and ideas to jump-starta green roof movement in your area. You might look at it this way: how bad a failure can youtolerate? And then operate within those limits. I'm not talking about installing your home orbusiness with a green roof on the first go. Start small and go from there.

Example # 1: Tom Liptan in Portland, Oregon, now known to very many people as a greenroof resource and advocate, shoveled some backyard dirt on his garage metal roof over asheet of visqueen, threw some seeds on it, watered it and then measured and observed itover a 9 year period. No cost, no grant, no public incentive, not even a particularly greatdesign. But from that experiment sprung a green roof movement in Portland.


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See Tom Liptan's Garage in The Greenroof ProjectsDatabase

Example #2: Jon Alexander, a member of the NW EcoBuilding Guild in Seattle, volunteeredan old garage. A bunch of fellow members volunteered to do some research on the net.They got a few donations of free materials from companies who either wanted to get somecheap market development or advertising, and they gave it a shot. Now they have 20 greenroofs up and running on structures from chicken coops to complete single-family residences.

The Alexander garage. Photo by LSV .Publisher's Note: Read more about the NWEcoBuilding Guild in Patrick's 2003 GuestFeature Article here . Read about Seattle

greenroof activity in Linda's Aug/Sep 2004Sky Gardens column here .

Example #3: In Chicago, with a mayor touting the benefits of green roofs, a small groupstarted exploring the possibility of green roofs by starting out with models shown to somelandscape people, and then built some small structures with green roofs.

Example #4: In Victoria, British Columbia two fellows with dreams of a small landscapebusiness attended a green roof conference in Portland, worked with a green roofdesign/build business for a few projects, and helped them with a few workshops. Adam Weirand Liam Hall of Paradise CityScapes took what they learned to design and build smallgreenroofs on accessory structures in Victoria.


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Left: Adam Weir and Liam Hall starting out a multi-level cathouse with green roof. Right: JoshPowers demonstrating EPDM membrane application for a doghouse.

Example #5: In our nation's capitol, D.C. Greenworks uses training on green roofs and otheractivities as a way to help people get job skills. Because greenroofs involve a wide variety ofskills form landscaping to carpentry to roofing to metal work, to (and this is the importantpart) making them all work together, trainees come out of this program with a wide range ofskills. As they work in the community, they bring with them the skill and understanding ofgreen roofs that private house project people tap into.

Read about 1425 K Street

above in The GreenroofProjects Database . PhotoCourtesy D.C Greenworks.

Publisher's Note: Read aboutD.C Greenworks in directorDawn Gifford's August 2003Guest Feature Article here .

Example #6: In Austin, Texas, a homeowner read about green roofs and thought he mighttry one on his property. Auten imitated the scrub pine and cactus landscape surrounding hishouse, made a small roof and put it at the entrance to his property.

Example #7 Ecoroofs Everywhere in Portland got volunteers together, hooked up with somegrants and some skilled roofers and started putting up green roofs. They have about 10 upso far.

Ecoroofs Everywhere came up with this inexpensive drainage detail. One of manyways to drain a green roof. Illustration by Steve Cowden/The Oregonian. Publisher's

Note: Read about Ecoroofs Everywhere in founding member Anthony Roy's November2003 Guest Feature Article here . See the Hawthorne Hostel ecoroof above in The


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Jeff Jaramillo demonstrating TPOtechnique.

Student trying her hand at EPDM membraneapplication.

.

There are many examples I have not listed here. There are design-build classed offered byColleges and Junior colleges that have taken classes out and built green roofs; classesoffering green roof education are common in Japan. As soon as the right mixture of skill setsis reached and coordinated, a green roof skill-building workshop can take place. There aremore than enough literature and information sources about this subject right now.

Here are some ideas:

Get on any of the green roof websites (those notselling products or services might be moreobjective) and study up on assemblies. Advertiseon craigslist.org for free building materials likeplywood, pond liner, framing lumber, single plyroofing membrane scraps (or contact localcommercial roofing companies or go tocommercial roofing construction sites). I had afriend who would always counsel me on thebest stereo equipment, another example of thehigh-tech world of computer software/hardware,cell phones and services. His theory was to waitbecause some really huge improvement was justaround the corner. His passion to get theultra-first of itskind-prototype-future-advanced-totally up-to-date

thing prevented him from actually getting anything and then moving on from there. If anyoneputs aside 30 days and reads the four major publications on green roofs, the three CDs ofthe past three Green Roof conferences in the U.S., and goes through two or three goodgreen roof websites, you will know as much as 90% of all the green roof experts andpractitioners around. Most of the people and companies who promote themselves asexperts are expert in usually only one or two aspects of a green roof and leave the rest toconsultants they hire.

MAKE FRIENDS WITH A ROOFER!(Someone who is familiar with single plymembranes.) They do not have to know a

plant from a car. If you cant, then get asingle piece big enough so you dont haveto cut or seam it. You dont have to be anon-profit or an institution or anything else

just someone who wants to build a greenroof. You can get an old dog house, a birdhouse, a cat house, anything with aplywood roof and build it up to make ashallow trough and then line it with pondliner from Home Depot, or visqueen. Next,get few small piles ( cubic yard sizedpiles) of growth medium ingredients likepumice, lava rock, compost, coco fiber,(experiment and get to about 10% organicto 90% mineral in the mix). If it works, you

can be one of the growing numbers of people who make their recipes secret. You can comeup with exotic names like Roof Dirt 257.

Go to a construction site where they are doing foundation work and get some sub-surfacedrain mat. Now make a roof with some plywood 2x framing on the edges for a shallowplanter, line it with your pond liner, or roofing scraps, lay down the drain mat, fill it about 4-6inches with your Roof Dirt 257, throw some seeds on it and you have a green roof. That isit! Will it be the best green roof, the most advanced, the longer lasting, the only one of itskind? No. It might even leak or fall down. All the plants might die. What if it rains toomuch? What if I dont have the right plants? What if the stock market crashes again?What happens if the bird flu reaches the U.S.? "What happens if the Cubans invadeFlorida? LIGHTEN UP!!! This will not make you a green roof expert. But it will put you in


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~ a r c arey

Patrick Carey is an architect in Seattle, WA, and his background is in Philosophy,Architecture, and Professional Theatre. Director of the Northwest EcoBuilding Guild's Green Roof Project for over five years, Patrick is also principal of hadj design ,a green roof design-build company. hadj has designed and installed over 50 green roofs that range in size from chicken coops to complete houses to commercial installations. hadj design has pioneered the cross-training of its crews in all aspects of green roof installation and has taken on the challenge of getting green roofs of all scales up and running.

a view from the sky trenches

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