The best way to keep the lawn on the roof green?

[Boncuk]

Hi All,

I'm about finishing my life's dream of an own home built on my imagination and plans. The house won't be too large accomodating my wife, two stepdaughers and myself having a total living space of about 200 square meters (including approximately 30 square meters for technical room for water tanks, pumps, electric distribution and automatic control.)

The electronics won't be a problem, but here is a question which arose during planning of the roof.

As everybody knows Thailand has three seasons which are the hot, the very hot and the f... hot season (which applies right now as the sun's appearant movement has it's zenith 90degrees overhead my location (14deg North)).

To keep the house moderadately cool I decided to grow lawn on top of the house with a desk type roof and about 3% of slope.

I intend to automatically water the roof using moisture sensors along the downside of the slope to indicate sufficient water downhill and open the valves whenever water is needed. Feeding water will be accomplished by PVC hoses distributing water uphilll.

(Water supply is no problem because of three water wells around the house, fed by "Khlongs" (flood control system for the rainy season)).

Most of all I'm interested in a saturated green "blanket" on top of the roof.

May be this spleen was born flying over dry areas in many countries of the world looking down on sh.. brown grass.

Has anyone of you friends experience in how to water a roof sufficiently?

Kind regards to All

Boncuk

 

[blueroomelectronics]

Would love to see a photo of the place.

 

[Reloadron]

Maybe an embedded soaking hose system? Running on a timer so when triggered a solenoid opens and water is delivered for X amount of time.

This also begs me to ask how the heck you plan to mow the lawn?

Ron

 

[Mikebits]

My special team of crack reporters uncovered this rare photo of Boncuks house

**broken link removed**

 

[canadaelk]

Mowing the lawn on the roof is easy. Cows, man, cows! Horses and goats tear the grass, Cows nibble (I still need to see that, a nibbling cow though!).

Doing that is a great idea, finally taking hold in N. A. Practised in some European contries (do not know about Asia). Mikebits house is a bit small though (617 ft. square? at most) to make this work. The pitch of the roof is too steep, the cows would fall off.

I allways wanted to do such a thing. My main concern would be the load that the support structure has to bear when the soil is wet.
Here in Vancouver, BC we have a new convention centre with a "green roof". A recent newspaper article detailed the technology. Most interesting. Watering seems to be no different than any garden plot.

 

[HiTech]

Oooh, lookie, it's Boncuk!

**broken link removed**

There's a nature center not far from me that intentionally grew grass and meadow flowers on the rooftop. The builder set up a rainwater collection system fed from the gutter downspouts and a pump/irrigation system to recycle the rainwater (a day or so after a storm) back to the rooftop lawn.

 

[Boncuk]

Would love to see a photo of the place.

Hi Bill,

I'll get some pictures of the raw building and my private jungle as well.

Construction will be continued next week.

In the meanwhile you might want to see this. I named it "traces of civilization"

Regards

Hans

 

[Boncuk]

This also begs me to ask how the heck you plan to mow the lawn?

Ron

Hi Ron,

nothing easier than growing grass which doesn't gain much height. It is used at Golf sites and requires no mowing, but a lot of water.

Just in case the grass grows high there will be a catapult taking up my wife to mow the lawn.

 

[Boncuk]

My special team of crack reporters uncovered this rare photo of Boncuks house

**broken link removed**

Hi Mike,

I'd better watch for your crack reporters.

Anyway they missed my house by a few millimeters. It's my neighbor's house.
I didn't plan to build a "living rest room with built in pantry".

Regards

Hans

 

[Boncuk]

Oooh, lookie, it's Boncuk!

Almost got it.

 

[Reloadron]

Hans

I know you constantly bring up those Thai temperatures but I loved Thailand. I was there a few times during the early 70s and absolutely loved it. The people were as warm and friendly as one could want and for me the food was to die for.

During over 20 years of international travel I built a list of places I loved returning to and places I would live. Thailand is right up there with Singapore in the Pacific Rim. You don't appreciate the heat till you have frozen your butt off in other places.

Hope this goes well and please do post pictures!

Ron

 

[Boncuk]

Hans

I know you constantly bring up those Thai temperatures but I loved Thailand. I was there a few times during the early 70s and absolutely loved it. The people were as warm and friendly as one could want and for me the food was to die for.

During over 20 years of international travel I built a list of places I loved returning to and places I would live. Thailand is right up there with Singapore in the Pacific Rim. You don't appreciate the heat till you have frozen your butt off in other places.

Hope this goes well and please do post pictures!

Ron

Hi Ron,

being used to rough climate (born in East Prussia - now Poland) the winters were pretty tough there. Having lived at the North Sea Coast quite some time there are always strong winds making it necessary to wear high heel shoes to make it downslope against the wind.

May be my descision was wrong to move to a hot country like Thailand. In the meanwhile I suffer from Asthma which is not pleasant at all. (Being surrounded by 350square km of rice fields - resulting not only in hot air temperatures, but also almost saturated air at 95 to 98% RH is the probable reason.) Phetchabun is located in the middle of a valley surrounded by 800m high mountain ridges in the West and East and there is almost no air movement to carry away the damp air.

Certainly Thai people are outstandingly friendly and living in the middle of them I never encountered any problem.

I don't enjoy Thai food very much because it's simply much too hot for me. My wife fixes Thai food for herself and her daughters and German food for me. Not only the food is heavily spiced, but very often "natriumglutamate" is used to amplify the hot taste.

Kind regards

Hans

 

[killivolt]

Smokin.

**broken link removed**



Hey, I think you could improve your income and keep people of the Grass placing on your roof.

Placing it on your roof may not keep them from setting your house on fire

I hear it's pretty hardy and easy to grow. :WINK:

Edit: It's good for rope too!

 

[cobra1]

Hi Hans

Not sure if you have an answer to your question yet, but in a setup such as this i would say the best way to water this rooftop lawn would be from underneath it, set up a network of hoses with holes in and add a few moisture sensors at various different places on the roof. With the water coming from underneath the soil will instantly soak it up with little to no run off and there will be very little surface evaporation either as the grass root will be constantly fed.

hope this helps you.