Costs, worth

What Did It All Cost?

The sixty four million dollar question.

The initial suggested price was "about $20,000".  This number was based on a site inspection and discussion by a green roof landscaping professional whose judgement we trusted. (And still do)

When we signified "interest' and asked for a detailed budget another number came back. I offered to provide a unit of "grunt labour".  The quote was then around $40,000, using "around" very loosely. This price was based on another site inspection and discussion with the green roof installer (contractor) 

That $40K budget was declined as being unworkable, and we proceeded to activate Plan B - Do It Yourself".

All things considered, our roof costed about $200 per square metre for all the things I had to spend money on. Materials, delivery, hoisting, permits and approvals, 3rd party technical support.

The City Eco-Roof Grant covered $75 per sq m - abut 1/3 of the materials.

To which you add "labour".  Realistically, commercial labour could double your cost for a simple installation, or treble it for a fussy installation. I think of ours as a fussy installation.

As the say YMMV!   Your Mileage May Vary.

Is It Worth It?

We are still getting used to the roof.  Analysis over the next couple of summers will eventually show if there is any financial benefit.

In the mean time..

• The second story of our home is noticeably cooler, especially on the real stinky sticky hot nights.
• The storm runoff from our roof is substantially delayed and reduced in volume  compared to our immediate neighbours and their flat roofs.  Small storms just don't runoff - they get absorbed.
• Now that the roof has grown "up" an inch or two and can be easily seen from the street, it is a local talking point.
• The shrubs in tubs are quite eye catching as they leer over the parapet. They do need regular watering with the same frequency as the rest of the ground level garden.
• I have watered the roof garden only once in a dry spell in July.
• We have been videoed and interviewed three times (in three months) for television programs. One interview was for a Chinese language TV channel "with English interviews" that were dubbed over into Chinese language. Video clips on my F/B page.

July, 2015

August, 2015, with English Interviews

• The colours change from month to month - to be covered in another blog entry.
  
• To which you can add 3 Open Houses for local community organizations and a date, Saturday 3 October, 2015 2:00 - 4:30 PM), with the OSEA "Green Energy Doors Open '15"  event.  Ontario Sustainable Energy Association (OSEA).

Shrubs In Tubs - Part 4 - Installation and Planting

Shrubs In Tubs - Part 4 - Installation and Planting

The planting of the shrubs is a bit tricky because I did not have access to a mechanical hoist.  

Friend Lino, the framer for the houses behind ours, did give us a lift with the Load Distribution Pads, and the two planters, but he was away on the day when I finished the installation.  Lino has a zoom boom and is very gracious when we needed a hoisting hand.

The installation of the shrubs into the tubs was fundamentally the same as on the roofs.

Two layers of drainage material were fitted to the base.

It was then covered with  a layer or two of the felted water storage material, cut to suit the geometry of the tub or the planter.

The tailoring of the storage layer to accommodate the circular geometry of the tubs means that there is quite a large area of overlapping material.  More storage capacity.

The containers were then filled "3/4" with the same mineralized growing medium as was used on the roofs. It is known as XTerr from Xeroflor.

The last 1/4 was a mixture of growing medium and "triple-mix", mainly because I had he triple-mix available (left over from last season) and I wanted to add more basic nutrients to the immediate growing zone.

Plantings.

There were chosen for their tolerance of full sun, a bit of heat, and modest water.

The two planters received a juniper each.  It is hoped that these will grow up a bit, but mostly sideways. The tag said 1.5'  (0.5m) high and about 3' (1m) wide.

The following material was planted into tubs.

• Pom-Pom Pine - Pinus sylvestris '(pom pom)' - ours has only one pom so it is not really a pom pom.
• Cascading White Pine - pinus strobus that may have been trained in its youth
• Two Tree Peonies- Paeonia suffruticosa   are about a foot high now, but we have higher hopes.
• Climbing Hydrangea - I have added a trellis of bamboos to provide a some height to which it can aspire.

Irrigation. 
I have added a complete drip irrigation system, accessible from ground level. It is a Rain Bird Gardener's Drip Kit from Canadian Tire, about $60 (2015). I added a few drippers and a second circuit to support the climbing hydrangea with RainBird pieces from "Lowes".  Lowes has a good selection of individual drip irrigation components so you don't have to buy complete kits each time you want another pressure reduction valve.

The climbing hydrangea has multiple drippers because it needs more water than the others. As a rule they all get watered on the same frequency as the rest of our garden. 

West Trough

South Trough

South Trough

South Trough

South Trough

City Incentive

The City of Toronto Eco-Roof Incentive Program

You might recall from an earlier session that we had applied for a grant under the City of .  

Toronto Eco-Roof Incentive Program

In summary, the City will give you a grant of $75 per square metre to install a living / green roof on your own home.  

• You will need to make an application in advance to join the program (quick).  
• You will need to get a City Building Permit (possibly slow and time consuming).  
• Do the installation ( you control this part)
• Have it inspected twice - once for the Building Inspector for their sign-off of the Building Permit and again by the staff of the Eco-Roof Incentive Program. ( a couple weeks)

We had a very pleasant visit with them about a week after the installation was the finished.  The sedums had been watered, and rained on, and had recovered nicely from the ordeals of travel. 

There was lots of discussion as we were the only full blown full coverage residential building "in play" at the time.  They even brought out the Summer Intern as part of their on-the-job training program.  There was a form to be filed out, photographs taken "for the record"  and measurements confirmed, to be signed-off by the City  staff.

Six weeks later the cheque arrived in the mail.

I commend this Eco-Roof Incentive Program to everyone in Toronto.  It works simply and well. In our installation the City "incentive"  covered about 1/3 of our material and permitting costs.  

All things considered, our roof costed about $200 per square meter for all the things I had to spend money on.Material, delivery, hoisting, permits and approvals, 3rd party technical support.

To which you add "labour".  Realistically, commercial labour could double your cost for a simple installation, or trble it for a fussy installation.

Sedums for the Main roof

Sedums on the Main Roof

The next two days were the culmination of almost 14 months of dreaming and scheming , hatching and planning, designing and organising and grunting.  It seemed like a long flog but we were looking forward to its end.  

The sedums for the main roof arrived on a big truck with a extendable boom like a HIAB crane.  It could reach up about 40 feet and could swivel its forks around.

I need to apologize for a complete lack of pictures here as my brain faded completely. Si you'll the thousand word version.

The product we installed from Xeroflr was their XF301 Sedum mat.  It is a field grown product.  It was delivered on a Connons truck so I assume it was grown by Connons on one of their Waterdown farms.

It was based on a layer of drainage material weave side up that had one layer of water storage fleece below it.  The open weave of the drainage material was filled with GM (growing medium) into which a range sedums had been grown.  By my count we have 8-10 species, although a couple predoominate.

The mats came rolled in 1 m by 1 m sections. Each roll was 1 m long by about 0.4 m in diameter, weighing about a gazillion pounds. About 40 or 50 lb.  Quite heavy and unweildy. They were delivered with 54 sq m ( about 550 sq ft) rolled up on two pallets.

Aknwloedging the reach of the crane, we elecete to lift them in batches of 6 -7 beacuse that matched the distribution of our temporary staging zone / landing pads.

S, with teh drivers help we rebundled the rolls intoa spare pallet and starting hoisting them up toteh roof. Whih took a couple of hours.

Then, with the trusty support from my able assistant (son, 28) we unrooled the mats and fitted them on top og the GM.  This brought t top of the installation up to be about 1/2 in above the level of the perimtere rail. Which felt fine to me.  

There was quite a bit of cutting and fitting to manage the smaller areas and shapes.  Initially I used a pair of scissors, for about 2 inches.  Then I tried a heavy duty Excato style knife and used a fresh blade every meter.  The GM is very bluntening. I would run out of blades very quickly. 

The solution is a 4" size angle grinder hired for the day or two.  

It was fitted with a "crack chaser" blade.  Did a really good job of cutting through the felted base material and the woven GM carrier.  Worth at least $40 a day!!!

To their credit, Xeroflor did ship a few more pieces than were strictly ordered, so we were able to sift and pick through the shipment to get really good mats for installation.

The sedums did come out looking floppy - flat and jaded - not unexpected from rolled material that had been scrunched into a roll then bounced at the way to the installation site. As part of the installation process I gave them all a good watering and they picked up substantially over the next couple of days.

So here is how it looked after we finished the installation.

Main roof open area

Up on the top of the 3rd Storey Walkout - close up.

Up on the top of the 3rd Storey Walkout.

The northern edge is tucked underneath the solar panels.

In some locations the GM filtered through the sedums.

Well, that's it. Jobs over. 

Over the next few months I'll put up some photos to show how it develops.  I'm hoping that the areas with GM showing will diminish as the sedums really start growing.

And I am looking forward to a cool summer.

For people who are interested in further discussions I suggest you leave a comment and I'll get back to you. We can remove the comment later to keep your coordinates relatively quiet. Or contact me via Facebook.
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Green but not living...

Poor Mans Green Roof!

There was a break of a few days between the hoisting of the growing medium and the arrival of the main load of sedums.

Winds were forecast.  As I didn't particularly wish to turn WIllowdale into a Saharan dust storm I applied one unit of green roof.

Green:  Ex Home Depot.

Ballast - courtesy of neighbouring building site  - on short term loan....

Hoisting the GM

Hoisting the Growing Medium (GM)

Following the installation of the edge railing, the next layer to be installed was the drainage layer. It was the same highly porous open weave material as was use don the kitchen roof.  It cuts with scissors and is laid with the grey filter fabric side facing up.

The next layer was a double layer of the water storage cloth.  While the open areas are pretty straight forward, the multitudinous corners took a lot of dovetailing and other finessing to ensure that there were no pathways for the GM to sluice through.

Wide spaces are quick and easy : two layers set perpendicular to each other.

Corners take a lot more finessing to ensure double coverage.

Corners are quite time consuming and fiddly.

And then the BIG DAY comes ... to hoist the growing medium.

It's a big day because this was the first of only two tasks that I could not do myself.  I needed heavy machinery and operators.  The GM was delivered in 1 cubic yard totes, each weighing about a ton.  In hindsight we were lucky to not be using the SOPREMA GM which is delivered in 4 yard totes - destined for large areas like condo and factory roof tops.

Growing Medium is NOT soil.!! No one says what is really in GM, but Xeroflor describe it as a proprietary mixture of lightweight, mineral based materials; including porous aggregate and organic matter derived from composted plant materials.  It is more mineral than organic, so it won't break down and disappear to quickly like soil would.  Our GM had a noticeable red hue to it from crushed brick material.

The sizing of the GM was in the grit to fine gravel range. All sub- 3/8".  Very little in the clay-silt-fine sand sizings.  Not all all well sorted.

Here is a post -hoist photo of rain-washed growing medium.  It has a distinctly red hue from the crushed brick component.

In our installation we planned to use a 4" (100 mm) layer on the main roof, amongst the solar panels, with a 6" (150 mm) layer of GM being used on the roof of the 3rd storey walkout.  

Why 1 ?? Because that's all we could reasonably hold within the structural limitations of the roofs.

Why 2?? Because a thickness of GM would provide additional water storage to reduce the frequency of watering.

Why 3?? Because we might elect to broadcast some native plant seed next spring, and they grow better (more reliably) with some GM into which they can stretch their roots.

Then the issue is how to move about 6 cubic yards of this stuff up 25 (8 m) or 35 ft (11.5 m).  My back was not that strong.  However Lino's loader was. 

Our neighbours were building a home and friend Lino,  the framer, had a "zoom boom" that was rated for 1 ton up 42 feet.

Lino's "zoom boom" without which we would have been skunked, and substantially poorer.

Lino is always good for a challenge, and came over in the evenings to help out.. We put totes destined for the highest roof 35 ft (11.1 m) onto a pallet and then hoisted it over the edge of the roof.  The totes for the main roof, at its lower elevation of (only) 25 fee,t were hoisted by their own straps.

The active end of Lino's loader, from the top, down about 30 feet..

I then cut away the side or bottom of the tote so its contents fell gently into a temporary hopper.  From there we shoveled it out around the roof with snow shovels, raking it into place but not compacting it particularly.

GM spilling gently onto the 3rd storey walkout roof.

Temporary hopper that holds about a yard of GM . We then shovelled it around the roof with grain / snow shovels

Getting started.

Vital tools

This funny looking jut-out is to provide space for the adjacent electrical control box to be opened.  It has the circuit breakers for the individual chains of solar panels and might be needed for SP maintenance: assuming you can still open it.

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Almost there.

Finished, ready for the living layer.
The GM is finished off about an inch below the top of the edging, by design.

Raked, but not compacted.

What does hoisting cost?.  Depends!.  Buddy rates are negotiable.

Commercial rates for a crane truck that could lift 1 ton about 40 feet "up" and 10 feet traversely ("over") run about $165 per hour (Ontario, 2014) : four hour minimum, including all travel time.

Our dilemma was that we could not hoist all 6 yards in the same session as we did not have places to temporarily stage them within reach of a regular crane truck. In the end we did it in 3 separate sessions based on 3 different staging areas.

 A substantially bigger machine would have been needed to increase the dimension of the traverse distance covered.   We needed to hoist 1 ton  30 feet horizontally at 40 feet vertically.  A bit of a challenge $$$$$$!

Friend Lino and his marvellous lifter fitted the bill wonderfully.