On average an extensive green roof weighs between 10 30 lbs per square foot.
How much does a green roof weigh.
And an intensive green roof weighs between 50 300 lbs per square foot.
A semi intensive green roof weighs between 30 50 lbs per square foot.
Intensive green roofs are essentially roof gardens and may also need to allow for the additional weight of paving and terracing furniture and even trees.
An interesting example of an intensive green roof is manaton the award winning private house on dartmoor that uses local meadow grass to blend the family home into the landscape.
A flat roof built using the enviromat green roof system will weigh the following.
As a guide prices can vary from 50 m for a sedum roof to 200 m for a fully planted intensive roof the cost of any reinforcement needed to the roof and or wall structures is additional to this.
When saturated with water in the summertime when the plants are at their biggest and heaviest the mats weigh 40 45kg m2.
System depth dry weight saturated weight 5 25 media depth 17 22 lbs ft 2 29 34 lbs ft 2 6 media depth 19 25 lbs ft 2 33 39 lbs ft 2.
Thus the saturated weight of a 3 inch deep system is about 20 pounds per square foot including a mature plant cover.
Holds up to 9 litres of water per square metre so saturated weight is 9kg m2.
Let s crunch some numbers.
So in dry state 50 m2 traditional green roof weighs around 5 tons while a similar sized urbanscape roof weighs just 1 ton scale this up and a 1 000 m2 traditional green roof space requires 100 tons of material to be brought on the roof and the urbanscape version only 20 tons and can be called a light weight green roof.
Check that there are no areas of damp rotting wood.
If necessary this weight can be reduced to approximately 40 kg m for roofs that can only bear a lightweight green roof system.
For example roofmeadow green roofs engineered to be both lightweight and efficient generally weigh about 6 75 pounds per square foot for each inch of media depth.
The weight of biodiverse green roofs varies according to the needs of the plant species required.
Weight of standard sedum roof a standard sedum roof has a saturated weight of about 80 kg m.
The cost will vary with the green roof system and the particular situation.
Biodiverse green roofs are low maintenance roofs designed to create or replace natural habitats.