Our new online green roof training guide for small scale green roofs is launched today. Whereas the original first edition DIY guide was available as a downloadable pdf, the second edition is an all singing and dancing multimedia guide. The new edition is packed full of videos, photographs and sketches. Seven years ago green infrastructure was still in its infancy as an approach to urban living. The new small scale DIY green roof guide is designed to encourage the public to play a greater role in delivering green infrastructure and green roofs on their own buildings.
The front cover the Small Scale DIY green roof guide
The Small green roof DIY guide First Edition – Global Reach
From Montreal to Melbourne, Chile to Cornwall, Cheshire to Christchurch NZ we were surprised with the number of people who bought the first edition of the green roof training guide. We know this because of direct communication with individuals across the globe.
When a Danish girl working in the High Andes, Chile contacted us asking about what to plant on her small scale green roof on a round house building, we were had to think out of the box!!! The essence of the response was ‘you must be surrounded by plants that will work on a green roof in the Andes.’ So we like to think that this is on green roof training course that reaches places others don’t!
One of my person favourites was an email from Minneapolis. The guy in questions wanted to know about what substrate/growing mediums were available in MN. Well that’s a long way form Essex and London in the UK and our reach to suppliers doesn’t quite stretch that far. However in our reply we mention a few ideas including crushed ceramics (old baths and sinks)(. Lo and behold he was a ceramics artist and had piles in the yard of his studio. We are hoping to get a blog post up on this roof in the very near future.
Biodiversity and Green Roofs
Small Scale Green roof training – Why?
Both John Little and I wrote the original guide in response from the hundred’s emails we were both getting from individuals wanting to build a green roof on a shed, garage, extension or a new small scale build. We never thought it would make any money but it would certainly help us and the people who emailed us.
John’s son, who was a bit of computer whizzkid, look as in total amazement. ‘Nobody’s going buy a pdf online!!!!’ Well it might be one of the few times the adults got it right!!!
Small scale DIY green roof training – Second Edition
Green roof training Youtube Channel
The new online guide should provide added confidence. Being online, we have been able to pack the members guide with videos of all the stages of the various builds. We have additional sketches of new design ideas we have come up with since the first edition – especially edge details and ways to do mono and duo pitch roofs. Being online we hope to add more videos and sketches to provide added confidence and information over the coming months and years. We have set up a greenrooftraining youtube channel, which will publish a series of public videos on small scale green roofs over the coming months and years.
Small Scale DIY Guide – A community across the Globe
The Second edition online is currently in English but we already have two other language versions in preparation. We are planning also planning how we can provide supplier lists beyond UK for countries where English is a first language.
We are hoping with additional languages and run by NGOs in those countries that we can help create a global community of small scale green roofs and small green roof training organisations across the globe.
So learn how to build a green roof, build one and help get green roofs and green infrastructure happening in a neighbourhood near you.
