Again because we have a sloping roof, the sedum green roof construction will be more complicated. These edge strips and anti slip strips are required to make sure the sedum blanket stays in place. The anti slip strips are temporarily covered to avoid injury if you stand on them!

Only a few weeks before the sedum roof is about to be laid the suppliers suddenly change their minds. “Yes, you will need an irrigation system in case there are long dry spells”. We suspect that this is another factor that applies more to sloping roofs, hence the original uncertainty. Sadly we will have to make a separate fitting for this now as the stainless plate we made for the ridge is already in place and covered with the first layer of felt. So an offcut of stainless has a stainless water pipe fitted to it.

A hole gets drilled in the roof and hey presto, one fitting in place ready for a 1/2″ fitting to hook a “leaky pipe” system up to it.

Two days to cover the log house roof with the first layer of felt and we are have a watertight roof. A good job, because the weather is going downhill this weekend with 100mph storms forecast. Another layer is yet to be fitted before the sedum rolls can be added to finish it off. These will need to be cut and delivered within 24 hours or the sedum like any plant will die.

In the mean time we will get to work on sorting out some more Western Red Cedar for the window and door linings so that we can get the house watertight.

Most sedum roofs have generally been applied to flat roofs. So safety considerations for maintenance and attention to the roof in later years are reasonably easy to accommodate with off the shelf roof safety solutions. Our roof has a slope of 22 degrees and so we had to work with some helpful consultants on a workable solution that would meet the safe working at height regulations. We have secured this plate at the ridge and it will be covered with the felt and sedum and another rail will then bolt on top to contain safety lines used by personel on the roof.

At last the roofers have arrived and start to put the first layer of felt on the 1″ plywood roof. This is the first layer of our sedum roof construction and once this is on we can breath a sigh of relief because the roof will at least be waterproof. You can also see our zinc guttering we bought in Germany in late 2006 which has been waiting in the shed for a while!