GREEN ROOF SERVICES
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Expertise and tailored Green Roof services for your needs!
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Workflow of Green Roof services and field of expertise!
Green Roof Technology offers the widest variety of agile services that cover all your needs. In addition to Green Roof services, we are experienced in natural Green Walls, Nature Pools, sustainable Floating Wetlands, and enduring Bio-Filtration. In fact we guide you from start to completion and beyond maintenance. At any point of your project our advisory service will add value and integrate in your workflow. Explicitly our Green Roof services are the connecting link between engineering and construction sites because we speak both languages.
At Green Roof Technology you find independent environmental consulting combined with practical experience on the foundation of a deep horticultural background.
Jörg Breuning, Crafting Green Roofs over 40 years
Assessments and Inspections
Before, during and after a Green Roof installation it is important to have a close eye on every step in the process. Inconsistencies in construction are not uncommon. Because we insist on solving these issues we can prevent substantial damages in future. In fact warranty driven systems have a long track record of issues or costly lawsuits. Therefore Green Roof Technology knows all the tricks and shortcuts within the industry. We advise our clients not to fall for colorful brochures or promising websites. Since solid engineering and good craftsmanship is what make a project last for generations.
In addition for existing Green Roofs with performance issues we typically have creative solutions to revitalize these without removing. However, we also assist building owners to file warranty claims correctly, and stand by as expert witness.
Consequently prevention is better than repairing and our credo is: Doing it right in the first place!
Product Development
Crafting Green Roofs for over 40 years and outstanding Green Roof services goes hand in hand with the development of components. Accordingly it goes along with sourcing materials, and improving existing products. Our firsts in North America reach from special hydro-seeding techniques to multi-functional drainage elements over porous aggregates from urban mining. Green Roof Technology introduced more products, material and components to the green roof industry in North America than everybody else (please see also INNOVATIONS).
Proudly we introduced the first Solar Garden Roof without penetrating the roofing. We further developed Solar Garden Roofs with an Artesian Stormwater Management system (Blue Green Roof). Because we like to support small businesses most of our innovation designed as Open Source with support for enthusiastic Green Roof installers. Just this matter of fact is groundbreaking and hyper innovative in North America.
Healthy, thriving vegetation is our foremost goal with all our developments because the plants are the super stars on Green Roofs. Therefore we systematically reduce and avoid materials that are not sustainable or with a decent lifespan. Examples of avoidable components are plastic materials (especially Polystyrene), Geo-foams, artificial sponging elements, sandwich components (more materials in one product). Long production and delivery chains are also not desirable because plants have no benefit from.
Our innovations have led to different patents and pending patents for our clients. Maybe you are interested in our 100% Non-Plastic solution from urban mining?
Advisory Services
You have a vision and we listen open minded without ties of selling specific products, components or systems. This is true from roofing, to vegetated roofs, occupied roof spaces, solar green roofs / solar garden roofs to any other living green implementation in extreme or buildup locations.
Independent environmental consulting combined with outstanding horticultural background is a hard to find in North America. However, it is a necessity when bringing back nature for the purpose to reduce our ecological challenges.
True to the motto: For every human illness, somewhere in the world there exists a plant which is the cure.
Living architecture, living green building technology, biophilic design, sustainability and resilience are our drivers that simultaneously increase ecology and economics. The approach of Green Roof Technology is less data driven (although Americans like data). In fact our living green strategies are not depending on sensible and interference-prone high tech solutions. In other words we understand the interactions of nature's laws in biology, chemistry and physics creating an environment where plants thrive for as long as our structures exist.
Flourishing vegetation in suburban and urban locations is the cure for our environmental challenges.
Design Support
We love when our clients making fun about our little sketches or hand-drawn diagrams. In fact we don't spend our time creating detailed CAD renderings or big architectural drawings where the letterhead is more important. Precision and perfection in details don't need a scale in a think tank. With a quick sketch is a simple and efficient education element for specific details and the most effective education for landscape architects and architects who translate the sketch later into their own CAD program. It is the royal road of Learning by doing!
Because our creative design clients want to fully understand the idea behind of what works the best, we explain in detail. This transfer of knowledge helps designers on future projects and they can do things entirely on their own. Certainly we will review and red line if wanted. Holding hands is a European tradition.
The passion, experience, and knowledge we provide is information to use, to understand, and to distribute to other and other projects. This makes our services affordable, creates tremendous value within our clients for a higher bandwidth to think out of the box.
Technical Assistance
Green Roof Technology's commitment to quality is evidenced in every aspect of our work, from the rigorous sourcing and testing of components, the in-depth research and development, to the development of standardized manufacturing that has revolutionized the North American green roof industry. The success story of the German FLL Guideline is the success of sprouting green roofs around the world. This guideline is good for any climate zone on earth and it is full of common sense with the understanding of complex processes of living architecture.
In contrast we see an increasing number of request for "Value Engineering" or A.K.A. increasing profits by decreasing sustainability and resilience. An expensive oxymoron for building owners.
Green Roof Technology technical assistance always focuses three core items: design intent, sustainable health of the plants, and the efficiency for installation. Following this robust rule the building owner will be the winner. Reason enough why building owner seek our services for reviewing entire process from roofing, solar and green roof. We help them in "picking the best raisins" because this is what good gardeners do.
Our long tradition in preserving resources goes along with sour skills in preventive engineering. Our methods to streamline components (a good belt is enough) makes suspenders and a nail in the belly button unnecessary. The pants will stay in place at any time. Preventive engineering reduces later repairs and difficult maintenance.
Cost Estimations
The accuracy of construction cost estimates vary at different stages of project development, ranging from ball park figures in the early stage to fairly reliable figures for budget control prior to construction. Generally, the accuracy of a cost estimate will reflect the information available at the time of estimation. Cost estimations in central Europe have a much higher accuracy than estimates on projects in North America, Middle East and U.K. because of standardized performance specifications and clear quantity spreadsheets.
Especially in North America available project information for cost estimates are typically limited to architectural drawings. Such deficit of information required extended time for cost estimates and higher contingency portions in the estimates.
Despite potential legal risks, Green Roof Technology prefers to create detailed performance specification where estimates can be made as transparent as possible with the least amount of hidden items and low risk for change orders. This unique approach in the process can reduce costs by up to 15%, makes proposals from bidders more competitive, and reduces the amount of endless meeting or coordination efforts.
Financial transparency for the client makes projects to remain within budget and timeline.
Project Management
Obviously designers or engineers speak a different language than the hard working people on a construction site. Green Roof Technology is the missing link to understand both side and act as a messenger between both. Without this capability a project can't be fun - in the sense of budget, time and motivation for all involved.
Although the above is the most important part it requires also a clear sense of what can be done at a specific time, where to place machinery (hoisting equipment), identifying staging, examination of tools, continuously improving best management practice, applying for permits, clean work places, and coordination with logistics and with others.
The significance of safety on the job and safety for others is a constant topic and will be conveyed throughout all processes as it may change in the process.
In over 2,100 projects over the last 40 years, Green roof Technology never had a safety incident!
Hands-On Training
Moving heavy rolls of pre-vegetated mats on a 45° sloped roof or shoveling 30 cyd of growth media into a wheel borrow looks like a lot of back pain in the evening. An installation crew might swallow this pain on the first day but will lose this motivation on the second. From our first project in North America in 1999/2000 Green Roof Technology has a very strong focus on keeping installation crews motivated by teaching them simple techniques and methods that significantly improve the way how they work.
It is still hard work and installation crews are the heroes (until the plants sprout) but reducing their stress on muscles and bones makes any project run more smoothly and efficient. Unfortunately, there is less than a handful of promoter for Green Roofs that look at the most valuable asset of construction - the people. Green Roof Technology is proud to be unmatched in this important (people) part of the process.
Jörg Breuning, Green Roof Technology is a practitioner over 40 years and with more project realized than anybody else out side Germany.
Design-Build
Design-build is a method of project delivery in which one entity - the design-build team - works under a single contract with the project owner to provide design and construction services.
Design-bid-build, design-build, and construction management are the three project delivery systems most commonly employed in North America. Over the past 15 years, use of design-build has greatly accelerated in the United States, making this delivery method one of the most significant trends in design and construction today.
Green Roof Technology has handled design-build projects up to $370,000 in the past and where the owner saved up to 25%. However, not all projects are ideal for design-build and having been an owner representative on multiple projects it seems that many design-build projects had been more costly at the end. Basically what works on one project might not work on an other.
Since the quality requirements at Green Roof Technology at the highest level within the industry, we help building owners to find the best decision. Unlike other, we are not afraid to say the truth, looking for better options or to regroup. successfully working with the owner directly requires a good "chemistry", trust and transparency from both sides. If this is established Green Roof Technology is dedicated to go beyond.
