Cob: House plans/living roof

[Russell Theodore Holzinger]

Copper on the roof helps melt the snow.
EcoStar who makes slate roofing from recycled plastic (looks real good actually) makes some copper products to help with this.  
One is called Snow Guards. go to http://www.ecostarinc.com 
Slate is one of the original roofing materials for high end cob homes in Devon.

Russ

-----Original Message-----
From: jen walker
Sent: 2003-04-03 8:36 PM
To: D.J. Henman
Cc: coblist at deatech.com
Subject: Re: Cob: House plans/living roof


Hello Darel and all, regarding Darel's comments
> 
For the record, my personal preference is that the roof suits the building.
Of course a small, round cob place would look gorgeous with a low pitched
living roof, probably even a big round place. I love living roofs and have
tried to work one into my plans. I'm trying to design a house that'll sleep
4, 2 of which will be teenagers one day and both my hubbie and I work from
home. I've got it down to 1400 sq feet, considered a modest size by popular
house standards and a low pitched living roof (sure in my personal opinion)
doesn't seem to look right, especially on a 2 storey structure. Perhaps I'm
not being architecturally creative enough. Not that I'm planning some story
book style, wood eating peak either. I've thought about doing a series of
perpendicular boards to keep the earth from sliding off a steeper peak as
we'd like to live in the roof (i.e. the 2nd storey, coincidentally another
pattern...sheltering roof). Any comments on that as an option would be
welcomed. I'm not sure if a bigger higher living roof may have some daunting
maintenance issues not to mention the structural integrity (i.e. more wood)
required to support it plus snow.

As for snow loads, where I live the snow can be as high as an elephants eye
and folks quite often get up there and shovel it off as the weight of it can
threaten the structure underneath. Hence the advantage of a metal roof in a
cold, snowy climate. 'Serious Strawbale' was written with Northeners in
mind.

Jenny Walker