Preparing the Kitchen Roof - Layers Upon Layers
A little water has flowed under the bridge of time, and now I must finish the documentation. I left the kitchen roof at the rivets and railings stage.
Day 3
Finished off the railings on the kitchen roof today. It transpires that it is easier to terminate or join the railing segments mid-span rather than in the corners. Mainly because its easier to assemble up on the roof with much less drilling, screwing and riveting. The Xeroflor railing system come with a neat little u-shaped brackets that you and use with self-tapping screws to make joins very quickly on straight pieces. These joiners don't work in corners and you then have to connive a stable connection. Which takes time. Inordinately...
The next layer is .......
Layer 4 - Drainage Layer
This is a coarse looped material known as XF 108H at Xeroflor. The XF 108H drain mat is a three-dimensional, lightweight, and flexible composite material made up of a drainage core of looped polyamide filaments bonded to a specially perforated, nonwoven filter fabric, to quote from the product doc. Its quite stiff but has "bounce back body". It crushes when you stand on it but then sprigs back to an open 3/4 inch thickness.
I put one layer everywhere inside the railing, and a second layer along the downstream edge to provide a drainage pathway underneath the railing.
This stuff comes in 60 m long rolls and is quite light. One person can carry a whole roll. Cuts with regular scissors. It lays down quickly. The black loopy side goes "down" with the fabric filter cloth on the "up" side.
Here is the drainage layer installed across the kitchen roof.
The next layer is .....
Layer 5: Water Storage
On of the problems with roof gardens is moisture - as in insufficient. So we put in "growing medium" (in lieu of soil) which can hold some moisture, and fleecy felted layers of "water storage. Otherwise we would be watering almost continuously in the bright sunny and very hot roof-top environments.
We used a thick fleecy material called "XF157 Water Retention and Filtre Fleece. It is about 1/4 inch thick and comes in 20 m by 1.3 m rolls and can be cut with kitchen scissors.
It looks like recycled cotton / felt.
I ended up putting two layers on, with seams at 90 degrees to cut down the risk of growing medium flowing ( or is it subsiding) away. I spent some time dovetailing the corners of the fleece to ensure that all the growing medium (next layer) is retained up on the roof.
The timber is just to hold the fleece down "overnight" in the absence of the next two layers.
The next layer is .......
Layer 4 - Drainage Layer
This is a coarse looped material known as XF 108H at Xeroflor. The XF 108H drain mat is a three-dimensional, lightweight, and flexible composite material made up of a drainage core of looped polyamide filaments bonded to a specially perforated, nonwoven filter fabric, to quote from the product doc. Its quite stiff but has "bounce back body". It crushes when you stand on it but then sprigs back to an open 3/4 inch thickness.
I put one layer everywhere inside the railing, and a second layer along the downstream edge to provide a drainage pathway underneath the railing.
This stuff comes in 60 m long rolls and is quite light. One person can carry a whole roll. Cuts with regular scissors. It lays down quickly. The black loopy side goes "down" with the fabric filter cloth on the "up" side.
Here is the drainage layer installed across the kitchen roof.
The next layer is .....
Layer 5: Water Storage
On of the problems with roof gardens is moisture - as in insufficient. So we put in "growing medium" (in lieu of soil) which can hold some moisture, and fleecy felted layers of "water storage. Otherwise we would be watering almost continuously in the bright sunny and very hot roof-top environments.
We used a thick fleecy material called "XF157 Water Retention and Filtre Fleece. It is about 1/4 inch thick and comes in 20 m by 1.3 m rolls and can be cut with kitchen scissors.
It looks like recycled cotton / felt.
I ended up putting two layers on, with seams at 90 degrees to cut down the risk of growing medium flowing ( or is it subsiding) away. I spent some time dovetailing the corners of the fleece to ensure that all the growing medium (next layer) is retained up on the roof.
The timber is just to hold the fleece down "overnight" in the absence of the next two layers.
End of Day 3. Now we need to find some sedums and growing medium.
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