Intensive Versus Extensive Green Roof

It also allows for a formal garden to be installed with paths grass lawn and flowers or pot plants.

Intensive versus extensive green roof. An extensive green roof is characterized by a thinner layer of soil and smaller plants. Green roof technology has the expertise to realize the impossible and the incredible if you can dream it we can create it and keep in mind. Extensive green roof systems extensive systems are simpler and lighter weight than intensive systems. The plants that are mostly used on extensively planted roofs include grasses mosses herbs and succulents.

A 2006 study by the university of michigan comparing costs of conventional and green roofs showed that on average installing a green roof costs about 22 00 sq. Intensive planting there are two ways of planting a roof. For a conventional roof. Gardening is the last bastion of the patient as nature cannot be hurried.

These systems range in thickness from 2 6 94 and weigh approximately 15 30lbs per sq ft. A semi intensive green roof can give rise to a richer ecology with more diverse plant and animal species. 15 to 50 per square foot. The distinction is based on the kind of plant involved.

If you increase that planting depth by a foot or two though a whole new realm of possibility opens up. Green roofs with more than 6 inches of media are considered intensive. Intensive green roofs. Due to their light weight and low profile they require less structural support and can be used on roofs with a slope of 30 b0 and higher.

8 to 20 per square foot. Extensive green roofs generally weigh between 12 50 pounds per foot versus 10 12 pounds foot for a conventional roof and 80 150 pounds foot for an intensive green roof not including snow. Typically these roofs will have more soil and some small shrubs as well as the low growing wildflowers and sedums found on an extensive roof. Extensive or intensive both types can be created on sloped green roofs and solar green roof s click on text to learn.

Their depth can range up to 2 feet or more depending on the weight constraints of the roof. Typically extensive green roofs strive for environmental benefits cooling and stormwater management prime among them over human amenity space.