The Book “Green Roof Construction and Maintenance” by Kelly Luckett is a thorough overview of green roof installation, maintenance and return on investment.
The book is published by McGraw Hill, a publisher of many good green building books.
The book is on the dry academic side. There aren’t any cutesy pictures or graphics. In fact the book is black and white. There are a bunch of green roof color pictures at the back.
Apart from it’s college curriculum feel it is an engaging book due to its depth of knowledge.
The author makes a point to avoid mentioning any brands or suppliers, which as a Brooklyn green roof installer I would have found useful, but it is done in the spirit of staying neutral.
The green roof installation and maintenance wasn’t anything new to me but one very interesting part of the book was the Life Cycle Analysis of a green roof.
The author offers concrete numbers which are very useful when discussing a green roof with a client.
According to Luckett, citing Green Roofs for Healthy Cities research, a green roof lasts about 60 years with very little maintenance. The initial installation cost according to them would be $25/sq.ft. This is in accordance with Eco Brooklyn’s green roof installation costs, although we usually can get it much lower, sometimes to more than half that cost.
By contrast they cite how a typical non-green roof lasts about 15 years before it needs to be resurfaced. And it needs to be resurfaced every 15 years after that. Comparing it to the life span of a green roof, the non-green roof needs an initial application and three resurfacing over 60 years for a total cost of $51.09/sq.ft.
From simply the installation and maintenance cost the green roof saves money hands down.
This is not considering the financial Energy Savings as well as increase in property value. And for larger buildings there are Storm Water Fee Savings (not applicable to Brooklyn brownstones).
Then you have the quality of life elements like heat island reduction, air quality, natural habitats.
It is a good book and worth getting since it shows the scholarly side of green roofs study.