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I am frequently asked if a YardPod can be have a green roof, the answer is “Definitely.”

Green roofs can help with rainwater management, cooling and energy conservation, increasing biodiversity and can insulate from noise.  Some people use the extra space to grow food.  Green roofs are often used to provide a wildlife habitat, but this should be managed carefully in order to avoid rodent problems.  We pay special attention to the underside of YardPods to ensure that critters cannot eat their way inside to the warm insulation, or even to the inside of the YardPod.

A green roof adds weight to the YardPod roof, so it is important to know in advance what is to be placed on the roof.  Just one inch of topsoil adds about 10 pounds per square foot in weight and that increases when it gets wet.

We recommend and can supply a single ply membrane roof which comes in a single sheet and can be an excellent foundation for a green roof.  We use an upgraded version of our standard membrane, so that owners can walk on their roof.

There are a lot of articles written about creating green roofs on large buildings, but I have just completed reading one that is directly applicable to a YardPod, an excellent book “Small Green Roofs – Low-Tech Options for Greener Living” by Nigel Dunnett, Dusty Gedge, John Little & Edmund C. Snodgrass, Timber Press 2011. ($16.47)

The book is described as “….complementary to but very different from other green roof books.  Like many Landscape, DIY, or garden books, green roof books tend to be authoritative- information is given by an expert to the uninitiated.  They speak with a single clear confident voice. This book is different.   We give some general and introductory material on construction, planting, and biodiversity, but the main bulk of the book is made up of the real experiences of people and their small-scale green roof projects…..Along the way things have gone wrong, turned out differently, or simply exceeded all expectations.” (from Small Green Roofs).

The book profiles some forty projects including advice on design, construction and how to look after the roof.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in building a YardPod (or any other garden building) with a green roof.