5 Reasons Why You Will Love Your GrufeKit Green Roof
As it is Valentine’s Day, we thought we would share 5 reasons why you will love your GrufeKit green roof:
1. It will look Aesthetically Beautiful
The main reason that you will love your GrufeKit green roof is because it will look amazing! A green roof can really transform your roof from having unappealing grey waterproofing to an amazing patch of greenery. Not only does it cover up the grey waterproofing, but it brings your garden closer, giving you an illusion of a larger green space.
If you go for the Sedum GrufeTiles, you will have a beautiful burst of green across your roof and if you choose the Sedum & Wildflower GrufeTiles you will also have this green but with bursts of colour from the wildflowers across your roof, giving you a beautiful array of colour.
Our GrufeTiles arrive to you pre-grown, so you won’t have any waiting around for this to come into effect!
2. It has Environmental Benefits
As well as your green roof looking aesthetically beautiful, it also has some environmental benefits, which sounds like a win to us!
The first environmental benefit they have is its help towards improving air quality.
Lack of plants in urban areas leads to a concentration in polluted air. Due to high property values, limited space is available for plants and nature to take a foothold.
Roofs are normally wasted spaces, not accessed often and often ignored. This is where a great opportunity for a green roof comes into play. A roof offers an ideal space to incorporate plants into the built-up environment, helping to purify the air and absorb polluting particles.
Changing just one roof to a green roof in a city may have a limited impact, but if it became an accepted part of building regulations then the impact on air quality in cities could be huge. But starting somewhere, with your roof, is a good place to start!
Secondly, a green roof can have an impact on biodiversity. By adding a green roof or a wildflower roof in cities, we can massively increase the habitats available to birds, bees, butterflies, and insects.
Specific plant mixes can be planted to bring local plants back to the environment and other features such as log piles, rocks, bird baths, insect hotels and beehives can be included to boost the ecological impact of the green roof.
3. It has Structural Benefits
Structural benefits might sound boring at first, but it really does have a lot of benefits that you will love!
A GrufeKit green roof offers structural protection to your roof. It protects the roof membrane from the elements, increasing the lifespan of a roof from the average of 20 years to 50-70 years. This will save you money and hassle in the long run and help look after your house.
A green roof can also help with sound insulation. So, if you live in a noisy area with planes flying past or the heavy rain is distracting you from work and your home life, then a green roof is an amazing solution. Adding a green roof to your property can help absorb these sounds and provide a quieter environment inside your home. The layer of soil and plants can reflect and absorb up to 30% of noise pollution.
Another structural benefit, which seems even more important now with energy bills rising, is that it can help with temperature regulation. As our green roof modules retain rainwater, they have a cooling effect, and the plants absorb the sun’s rays keeping the building cooler. This is something we all could have benefitted with in our recent heatwave in the UK. In the winter the plants also keep the building warmer preventing snow and ice from building up on the waterproof membrane, meaning you won’t need your heating on as much!
As just mentioned, green roofs can retain rainwater. Green roofs are a type of natural flood management. In urban areas roofs make up large areas of hard standing and runoff can be huge. The plants on a green roof use up a small amount of water, but the soil beneath them will soak up a significant amount of water. The saturated soil will slowly release the water off the roof, but the green rood slows the process down, reducing the risk of a flash flood.
4. It is Easy to Install & is Low Maintenance
Another thing you will love about our GrufeKit green roofs are that they are easy to install and to look after!
Gone are the days of green roof installation being a specialist trade. Using the simple ANS GrufeKit system, any roofer or DIY self-builder can add a green roof to their project without the need for a costly installation team. All you need to do is lay down the protection fleece on top of the waterproof roof structure, clip the modules together on top of the fleece and finish off with any accessories you may like, such as Scottish pebbles. (You can see in more detail how to assemble your green roof here).
Once your roof is installed, there is little maintenance required. Sedum is a hardy, low-growing, evergreen plant that requires little to no maintenance and is the foundation of our green roof system.
5. It can have benefits on your wellbeing
Our final reason as to why you will love your GrufeKit green roof is that it has been found that green roofs can help with your wellbeing.
It has been shown that exposure to nature, even looking at vegetation, promotes mental health (London Living Roofs and Walls Report, 2019). Research has shown that 30 minutes or more exposure to nature each week reduces the likelihood of high blood pressure and depression (London Living Roofs and Walls Report, 2019).
In addition to health benefits, viewing green infrastructure can improve concentration levels by 6% whilst viewing bare concrete can reduce concentration levels by 8% (London Living Roofs and Walls Report, 2019). Adding a green roof to your home, particularly if you work from home, could be beneficial for increasing your concentration and productivity.
If these 5 reasons have made you want to install a green roof right away, then you can view our full range here or contact us to find out more about how you can get started.
