Remodeling Your Home? Adding A Living Roof

When you are remodeling your home, it's the perfect time to convert your roof from a traditional, everyday household roof to something that can give back to the environment and reduce the heat island effect that you find in cities and many compact neighborhoods. The best way to do this is by remodeling your roof into a living roof. Here's a look at some things you should know about a living roof conversion.

Why Consider A Living Roof?

A living roof is a roof structure that is designed specifically to support the growth of plants. By covering your roof with plants, you'll generate an atmosphere that's better for the environment. Additionally, you'll get additional insulating benefits compared to a traditional roof. This can help you to manage your home's climate control costs.

Finally, a living roof design will filter rainwater. On a traditional roof, rain runoff will collect all sorts of chemicals from the roofing material and the environment, and those chemicals will be carried into the groundwater as the water flows from the gutters down the drain pipes and into the ground.

When rainwater flows through a living roof, the plants and soil matter actually create a filtration system that will eliminate a lot of impurities from the water. That means you'll be contributing cleaner water to the local water table.

How Do You Plan A Living Roof?

Another important consideration for your living roof is developing the proper plan. You'll want to talk with your roof remodeling contractor about the plan to ensure that you address all of the important factors. For example, you'll want to start by deciding on the roofing support structure first. That way, you will know how much strength you have in the roofing structure before you choose your plants. Talk with your roofing contractor about how to create a strong, stable roofing support structure first.

Once the roofing structure plan is established, you'll want to incorporate waterproofing material to protect your roof from the water draining out of the soil. The next component of the roofing plan is the drainage system. The drainage system will go beneath the plant structure to direct water to drainage channels. Then, you can talk with your roofer about the type of planters you want to construct.

Remember that your roof's planting structure should be shallow. The more soil you put up there, the heavier it's going to get. So instead, design shallow planting boxes, use lightweight soil, and plant shallow-rooting plants.

Reach out to a local roofer to learn more about doing this type of custom remodeling.

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