ECO BROOKLYN INC. » Green Roof

Shingle Roof Repair

Gennaro Brooks-Church — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:34:35 +0000

Here is an example of a roof repair we just did. New York City has mostly flat roofs but once in a while we come across shingle slanted roofs. It is important to do shingles right because otherwise the slightest wind will blow them off again. In this case the roof was only a couple years old so it really shouldn’t be damaged already.

Eco Brooklyn doesn’t focus on specifically on shingle or tar roofs but as a green roof installer we often get involved in the roofing aspect as well. We’ve learned how important it is to do it right because once the green roof is on it is really hard to find a leak should the roof layer be installed incorrectly.

We were brought on to this job because the client is considering installing a green roof. But before we could do that we had to address the immediate issue of leaking

In this case there were two areas of concern. One was the incorectly applied shingles. The other was the area where to roof joined with the side wall. A crack had developed due to expansion and contraction of the roof. This is something that needs to be checked every couple of years and tar reapplied as needed.

The shingles were not properly applied and blew away, causing a leak down the back wall.

Where the roof met the wall a crack had developed.

We repaired the shingles by first laying tar paper under the top shingles and over the bottom shingles. We used rust proof roofing nails. We then laid new shingles starting at the bottom and working upwards. The top shingles we placed under the existing shingles. There were one or two small holes that were better served with some tar patching instead of ripping up more roof.

What the client is paying for here is that the job isn’t material and labor cost but more technical knowledge. Anybody can go up and throw materials around but the trick is to install it precisely so it that it lasts. The layering of materials is very important, all the while not damaging the exiting roof.

Another consideration for Eco Brooklyn is not to use toxic or new materials. In this case there is no question that tar shingles and tar flashing is a petro chemical product, which is far from ecological given our destructive addiction to oil. But because it is a repair of an existing roof we wanted to keep the look the same.

We did however use dunage materials. Dunage is when a package is damaged and the store either throws it out or sells it cheap. We buy dunage because it reduces the amount of materials being thrown out by stores, thus reducing the burden on the landfill.

In this case the dunage was a damaged pack of shingles and a dented can of flashing. tings that don’t effect the quality of the materials so it is perfectly acceptable to us.

Here is the repaired roof:

The new shingles were placed strategically over and under the existing shingles. The nails were placed so they are not exposed. Over time the weathering will blend the new color with the old color.

The crack along the border was sealed with flashing.

Green Roofs and Rooftop Farming

Debbie Pierce — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 19:38:27 +0000

EcoBrooklyn's Green Roof

EcoBrooklyn, as a green builder is not only involved with green construction, but also with other ways of incorporating environmental issues into our work. As food awareness increases, green contracting has the potential to provide us with produce that is organic and as local as you can get. Green roofs currently serve all kinds of functions; including reducing runoff, and cooling a house in summer, among others. But why not use green roofs to grow some of our food? EcoBrooklyn’s green roof currently has some strawberries, but what other kinds of produce would work for a green roof?

EcoBrooklyn’s Strawberries

Plants growing in green roofs need to have shallow roots and be relatively drought resistant. Green roof beds are typically only 4 inches deep, so this is important to consider when planting. Many vegetables have much deeper roots than 4 inches. However, many herbs may be good alternatives. Herbs like thyme, oregano, lavender, creeping rosemary, and mint are all good choices. Be careful of mint and oregano, because both are known to spread uncontrollably if under the proper conditions.

EcoBrooklyn's Mint

Growing herbs, fruits, or vegetables can provide all kinds of benefits. Even if you are growing less edible herbs like lavender, they can still make your whole rooftop garden smell amazing. Growing herbs can save you a ton of money, and fresh herbs are always better than what you buy in the store. You also have the option of growing fruits and vegetables in pots on your roof. Some good choices might be tomatoes, peppers, chives, beans, onions, or lettuce.

If you want to know more about the potential of rooftop farming, there is plenty going on in Brooklyn. Both Brooklyn Grange and Eagle Street Rooftop Farm produce a variety of vegetables. However, it is important to remember that these green roofs are much deeper than many buildings can support. For more information go to http://www.brooklyngrangefarm.com/, and http://rooftopfarms.org/

Picture Courtesy of http://rooftopfarms.org/

The Eagle Street Rooftop Farm

Green Roof Tour

Gennaro Brooks-Church — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 15:40:28 +0000

This week we had CUNY students come by to the green show house. One of Eco Brooklyn’s interns Michele Fonzi, who has a degree in Landscape Architecture, showed the model of our green roof she built.

Above you see the side view of the green roof installation. First there is the roof structure made out of beams with plywood over them. Then you have a high R value insulation that keeps the house cool in the summer and warm in the winter. This kind of insulation does not work well if it gets wet.

Then you have the EPDM rubber water barrier over the insulation. It keeps the PolyISO dry while in turn the polyiso provides a cushion for the EPDM so it does not puncture. The EPDM also provides a back up root barrier.

Above the EPDM is another layer of insulation, this time XEPS which can get wet. This insulation provides further protection for the EPDM. The insulation also provides a warm base for the soil so that the plant roots stay warmer in the winter.

Over the XEPS insulation goes the water retention mat so that the plants have access to more water. This particular mat is a combination of water retention and drainage. You want the plants to get water but you don’t want the roots to sit in water. This drainage and retention replicates what normally happens in deep soil.

Above the retention mat is a root barrier so the roots don’t go down and create leaks in the roof. And above the root barrier are the soil and plants.

A good green roof installer knows how to replicate normal growing conditions in a very shallow environment. In this case you have only three inches of soil but because of the insulation, water retention and drainage we provide an environment that feels like much deeper soil to the plants. This allows them to grow better in an environment that normally is very harsh – a New York Brownstone roof.

Brooklyn Green Roof Blooming

Gennaro Brooks-Church — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 12:19:11 +0000

As a New York green roof installer I have a special affection for my own green roof. Check it out after all these summer rains. It is bursting with life. I threw a couple handfuls of Native North East wildflower seeds a couple years ago and now the roof overflows with sunflowers both big and small.

This green roof installation really shows a different green roof from your typical low laying sedum roof that resembles more a desertscape. It looks more tropical than anything. But if you pick the right native plants for the mini ecoregion of your particular roof then you can expand the kinds of flora you have on a green roof.

Green Roof Installation with two bee hives

The back of the green roof has more cactus type plants

There are over thirty verities of sunflowers native to the region

The green roof has a lot of herbs. You name it, they are there.

Mint is a very happy plant on a green roof, mostly because mint grows pretty much anywhere

I always forget about the surrounding neighborhood. It is a nice view.

Do You Need a Permit to Install a Green Roof in New York?

Gennaro Brooks-Church — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 22:43:32 +0000

The answer is no.

Here is what the Green Roof and Solar Department at the NYC DOB told me:

The building code does not explicitly provide a threshold for when a green roof installation would require a permit. The department is currently developing rules to provide guidance. In the meantime, a green roof installation is regulated in a similar manner to a roof replacement.

Under current department rules, a replacement in kind of roofing membrane does not require a permit; however, any roof replacement must still abide by the code. For example, the added thickness of a membrane cannot reduce the height of the parapet wall below that required by the code.

Furthermore, any roof replacement that increases the load on the roof structure beyond its bearing capacity, then additional work must be performed to increase the bearing capacity of the roof which also requires a permit. If the scope of the roof replacement alters the roof deck, then a permit must be obtained.

With respect to green roofs, many green roof systems add significant loads to the roof structure by way of the plant materials, growth medium, containment, and water. I highly recommend that you retain the services of a New York State registered architect or professional engineer to evaluate your roof prior to any green roof installation in order to verify the load bearing capacity of the roof.

If the green roof installation will require alteration to the roof deck or roof structure, then you must obtain a permit. Many green roof systems do not require deep growth media and as such do not pose a significant addition to the dead load of a roof.

As a general guideline, the department will not require a permit for green roof installations where the depth of the growth medium and containment does not exceed 4 inches in depth. However, again we would stress that you retain the services of an architect or professional engineer to evaluate the particular conditions of your roof, and any roof installation must still abide by the building code.

Furthermore, the New York City Fire Code requires Fire Department access to flat roofs of buildings that are 100 feet or less in height. Please refer to the Fire Code section 504.4 for more details.

If you fail to provide the Fire Department access, you may be found in violation and subject to penalties by FDNY.

Eco Brooklyn is a New York and Brooklyn green roof installer so this information is very important to us. If a client wants to take advantage of the $4.50/sq.ft. tax rebate then they do need to file for a permit. Sometimes if there is also a deck on the roof that is taking up space then given the small size of brownstone roofs it does not pay to go through the added work and expense of filing.

If you only have a 200 sq.ft green roof it is not worth paying $2,000 to file the job when you only get $900 in tax rebates. And yes filing a green roof job is expensive compared to other jobs of the same size because the paperwork is so tedious and the DOB is so reluctant to file it (though not understanding it and fear they are doing something wrong).

New York Green Roof Installation

Gennaro Brooks-Church — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 21:42:53 +0000

We just wrapped up a green roof job in East New York. Here is a photo essay from start to finish. We planted late in the year and the nights were already freezing. But we trusted the hardiness of sedum and so far they have shown to be very happy on the new roof.

The roof was your typical lifeless petrochemical slab with about six layers of tar.

The first thing we had to do was remove the tar roof. It was at the end of its life and starting to become too heavy for the house. We then built a little one foot wall around the perimer to hold the future green roof.

We had our share of nightmare weather and leaks.

We then put five layers of salvaged polyiso for a R60 roof. The materials we use is very important. We salvage as much as possible. We also didn’t want to use the conventional method of gluing the boards, which is really toxic. Below you can see a great alternative we did where we tied the insulation down with string – a very low embodied energy low toxic solution that is strong enough against the powerful winds in that area.

We then put a layer of rubber epdm, which isn’t exactly a green product but it lasts about four times longer than tar so it is pretty amazing.

The key to a green roof is that you recreate the qualities of the ground but with much less depth and much lighter. You accentuate the drainage and water retention qualities by using drainage layers and retention layers. You keep it light by using high nutrient growing medium with a lot of light filler.

Next we put a water drainage layer. It has a mesh that makes a space for the water to drain.

We salvaged the drainage layer from Build It Green but didn’t have enough so we bought another kind from the store. This one instead of a plastic mesh it has little dimples that create space for the water to drain.

Next we put the water retention layer. We got that from our friend Atom who had some left over from her jobs. The water retention layers are like big soft blankets.

Next we laid the soil all over at 3″ depth. We used Gaia Soil. It is cool because it uses recycled Styrofoam. I have my reservations about surrounding ourselves with yet more plastic….but it is salvaging huge amounts of garbage from the dump.

Here is the staging area.

Gaia soil is so light that it easily blows away so once the soil was down we covered it with jute. Over time the jute decomposes but by then the roots are holding the soil down.

Over the jute we put an inch of organic locally made compost. This holds the jute down as well as keeps the plants healthy.

On top of all this we put mulch. The mulch holds the layers down as well as gives some protection for the plants from the harsh climate up there on the roof. It also looks very dramatic! We salvaged our mulch from a garden center that was throwing it away. A rat had made its home in the pallet of mulch and they couldn’t sell it. I saw the rat as I was carting the bags away. I apologized for taking his home. Notice the gnaw holes in the bags.

Finally we bring the plants. We got our plants from two places. The first is a garden center that was throwing plants away because they had become too ugly for customers to buy. We don’t mind ugly. We love all plants even the ugly ones. We let the plants sit over the summer in a very hot and dry environment because we had no other place to put them. Because they were not your typical green roof sedum it was a great test to see which ones can handle a hot and dry green roof. Here they are when we got them.

The other plants are your typical sedum. We buy them from a local psychiatric center whose patients grow plants as part of their therapy. An employee approached Eco Brooklyn asking if we would be willing to buy the plants. Management is trying to cut funding for the gardening program but if it makes money they agreed not to cut it. It is very warped. These poor mental patients have to prove their therapy is making a profit in order to get funding. We gladly buy the plants.

We lay the plants out on the roof and then insert the plugs into the growing medium. Around the border of the roof we put stones we salvaged from a cellar excavation. They hold the roof layers down against strong winds.

We placed some salvaged tiles as stepping stones.

And here is the finished product one day after planting.

Some of the green roof plants we installed. They are just little plugs now but will eventually cover the whole roof with a lush green cover:

Here is the green roof drain, again all salvaged materials:

As New York green roof installers with a passion for pushing green building to higher level the ingredients of a green roof are just as important to us as the end result. It is great that it is a green roof. It is also great that the soil, the mats, the plants and various other things are salvaged and recycled content, thus reversing the landfill waste and reducing consumption of new resources.

It is great that the workers were there for more than a paycheck. They loved and enjoyed the process and were proud of their accomplishment. Also great is that it is for a very modest income client. It is important to us that green building be accessible to middle income people. That is how we will make the most significant positive impact.

This is the magic of holistic building. All the parts are equally important and supportive of the whole.

Green Roof Soil

Gennaro Brooks-Church — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 19:13:00 +0000

A green roof is engineered to partially duplicate normal soil only without the depth. In normal soil the earth is deep but with a typical shallow green roof (aka extensive) the soil is no more than 6 inches at the very most.

You replicate an earthen environment using drainage mats and water retention mats so that on one hand the water drains and on the other hand the water is retained like it would into deep soil. You also alter the actual soil. It typically is called a growing medium instead of soil.

The Germans are the leaders in green roofs, arguably the leaders in green building overall, and they have spent a lot of time looking into the best composition of green roof growing medium.

Typically it is a mix of filler and nutrients. The filler usually also acts as a water retention material as well as being something very light. Volcanic rock works great but isn’t local unless you live in Hawaii or something. Expanded clay works really well too. Clay can retain a lot of water for its weight and releases it slowly over time.

I’ve seen the filler be chopped up expanded polystyrene. Gaia Soil does this. That is a cool use of garbage and you can’t get lighter than foam! The foam doesn’t do well in winds though and I’ve seen neighboring back yards filled with little white foam pellets blown from the green roof. I also have some minor concerns about the foam pellets giving off toxins.

The nutrient is usually fertilizer. Eco Brooklyn is currently building a brownstone with composting toilets and I am excited to use the humanure for a green roof. We would water it with gray water. That would be taking urban green building to yet another revolutionary level! Just think of the thousands of gallons of sewage being turned into a lush and hygienic green roof!

In terms of composition about 80% expanded slate (clay) and 20% compost works well. Permatill has some great info on this. They provide growing medium.

Despite all this a green roof is not a normal earth plot and only certain plants will grow on it – namely shallow root plants ok with harsh weather.

Steep Green Roofs and Living Walls

Gennaro Brooks-Church — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 16:46:38 +0000

In my ongoing obsession with putting earth and plants on city walls I have found some more resources. My ongoing research is for several jobs Eco Brooklyn has in the works to put living walls on Brownstone exterior walls. There are many ways to do this and I have not decided which to go with yet.

My main consideration is maintenance, durability and embodied energy.

The wall must require zero or low maintenance. This means the plants need to take care of themselves year after year. The main consideration is water, which would be provided by the gray water produced by the brownstone. Otherwise the large amount of water a living wall requires would render it unsustainable if it used potable water.

In terms of durability the Brooklyn living wall needs to have plants that don’t die. Obvious enough but easier said than done. They need to be native plants that like hanging on cliffs. There also needs to be a mix of evergreen and perennials. The evergreens would keep the wall from looking bleak in the winter and the evergreens would keep the wall vibrant.

More importantly the structure needs to be durable. Earth and wood are key ingredient for termites so unfortunately we can’t use the abundance of salvaged wood for the frame that holds up the living wall. I don’t want to use the existing brick wall of the brownstone to support the living wall since I don’t trust that it won’t bow out over time. I have seen too many walls do this without thousands of pounds pulling on it.

The obvious choice is a metal framework.

But that needs to be balanced out by embodied energy. A living wall with a metal framework would mean a lot of embodied energy even if the metal was made from recycled content. It takes a lot of heat to melt down metal. Finding salvaged metal is still a challenge for Eco Brooklyn, both in electrical and plumbing material, since scrap collectors get it before we do. We are working on building stronger ties with scrap collectors but so far our salvaged metal sources are scarce.

Anyway, here are some items that are helpful in my growing knowledge of the perfect Brownstone living wall.

UrbanHaBitats.org offers some good articles on urban living walls. They list all their sources for further digging.

This woven plastic may be an important element in a living wall. The material would allow the plant roots to weave into it and help create the support structure. Otherwise the plants and earth will sag with gravity.

Zinco offers holding cells for sloped green roofs that could be incorporated behind a mesh in a living wall. They also have a good moisture retention mat.

Planting Green Roofs and Living Walls Book

Gennaro Brooks-Church — Mon, 24 May 2010 01:35:33 +0000

The book Planting Green Roofs and Living Walls by Nigel Dunnet and Noel Kingsbury is an authoritative book and should be on the shelf of any Brooklyn green roof installer.

I bought it in the hopes it would help improve the Eco Brooklyn living wall technique for Brooklyn brownstones where plants are actually growing on the front of the building, creating a green wall ecosystem.

Unfortunately they only touched on that kind of living wall by mentioning living wall pioneer Patrick Blank. When they say Living Walls, they are mostly talking about hanging walls or climbing walls using trellises and climbers. This is when the plant is on the ground and grows up the wall.

But despite this the book is great. The authors really know their stuff and offer clear information on all aspects of green roofs and walls. They are both from the plant realm so they focus on that. The engineering side is covered thoroughly but more as a foundation for what they consider more important: the plants.

In fact they bemoan how many green roofs are specked by engineers and architects who are very good at the design but know little about plants, resulting in green roofs that are great in terms of load bearing capacity and water tightness yet have scraggly vegetation.

The main attribute of the book is it’s clear writing. Although 300 pages long it is an easy read. And although loaded with information it is presented in a digestible way.

They have a lot of good pictures. The one flaw is that their excellent list and description of plants lacks pictures. What is the use of a list of plants if you can’t see what they look like?

But the rest of the book makes up for it. They have read a lot of the other books out there on the subject of green roofs and have consolidated it into their book.

They are from the UK so their focus is on the UK and Europe. There isn’t much on US green roofs and there definitely isn’t mention of Brooklyn green roofs.

But overall a good reference guide.

Living Walls and Green Walls

Gennaro Brooks-Church — Thu, 13 May 2010 19:49:24 +0000

Here is a great pdf doc on green walls. It is created by Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, an excellent resource for urban green roofs and living walls.

We install living walls in Brooklyn and are constantly looking for better techniques. The art is still very new and we are still very much in the exploration phase. It is exciting and creative.

Check out the file. It has lots of picture examples worth seeing.