Make a Sod Roof, the Old-fashioned Green Roof: The Return of the Sod Roof

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If you can't or don't want to dig the sod yourself, you can hire someone with a front end loader on a tractor to do it. Tell the operator to skim up an eight-inch layer of turf, then hop in the bucket and cut the large sheet of sod into pieces small enough for you to handle. At that point, the operator can raise the bucket to roof level for easiest unloading.

Lay the sod in whatever sized sections feel most comfortable to you and try to work most of the stones out of the chunks of dirt before you put the turf in place. Strive for no stones at all but, if you do miss a few, don't let it worry you. The flexible bed you've created will conform to their shape.

When the roof is completely covered, chances are you'll notice that the surface of the sod is uneven due to the varying thickness of individual pieces of turf. Don't worry about it. Just rake some extra dirt into the low spots until the surface of the sod is level. Any grass you cover will grow right up again.

To keep the wind and rain from eroding your roof away, line its perimeter with cedar logs. Cedar is bug and rot resistant and will last a long, long time. Spike the logs down on top of the eaves but do not, of course, nail through the under layers of roofing and cause a leak. If an accident does happen, however, you'll be pleased to know that sod roofs — unlike most others — are remarkably simple to repair: Pull up three or four square feet of turf in the general area of the leak and thoroughly apply salvage cement.

That's about it. Armed only with this short explanation, you should be able to lay down a sod roof with the best of them. It's that easy ... so easy, in fact, that Tim Rice and Steve Jacob have already experimented with some eye-catching and interesting variations on the traditional turf house topping. One home they've built has a large window on the second floor that opens directly onto the sod roof of the first level ... which thereby doubles as a balcony and terrace. Another Rice-Jacob house features a sod roof which gently slopes all the way down to ground level: walking onto the top of that home is just like walking up a hill.

Is the sod roof really going to make a comeback? I don't know ... but I've interviewed a number of owners of Rice-Jacob turf-topped buildings, and found them all quite happy with the structures.

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