John from secrets-of-shed-building has kindly written us a post about green roofs which I know a lot of you are thinking about and something Iam sure a few of the Eco-sheds will have.

and a bit like Sarah’s shed here

Green roofs are a popular choice on new permanent buildings nowadays because of planning requirements to reduce surface runoff which can overload local drainage systems. Installing a green shed roof on your shed requires that the shed roof be strong enough to carry the increased weight. Here are a few questions (with answers) that are commonly asked about green shed roofs.

1. What plants do I use?

There is a wide range of suitable plants. Green roof plants should be selected on the basis that they can cope with normal roof conditions, which can be dry and windy. Plants are selected for a particular roof on the basis of aesthetic requirements and site conditions. The core of any green roof are varieties of Sedum although herbaceous, bulbous plants and certain grasses are used.

2. Do I need to water it?

No. The only time under normal seasonal conditions that a green roof should be watered is if the plants are installed during the summer. Green roof plants are selected to survive under the normal environmental conditions that they are likely to experience on the roof.

3. What roof pitch will I need for my green roof?

The plants and growing media should be stable and successful at pitches of up to 30 degrees. green roofs are also perfectly suited to curved roof applications.

3. Do Green roofs have a track record?

Green roofing systems were originally developed in Germany have a history of 50 to 60 years.

5. What time of year is best for installing a green roof?

The best time of year for installation is late summer/early autumn. Spring and winter installations are also acceptable. Installation during the summer is possible although greater care of the plants is required until they are well established.

Visit Secrets of Shed Building for more details on building an extensive green roofon your shed.

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I saw this yesterday, but did not get round to posting it but it’s a follow up to something I posted last year.

according to the telegraph

An inventor is helping underdeveloped nations with creations from her grandfather’s potting shed in Yorkshire, including a refrigerator which does not require electricity.

Emily Cummins is already the mother of several award-winning inventions at the age of 21 while on an unrelated degree course.

Her latest project is the electricity-free refrigerator, which works through a simple process of water evaporation.

She won £5,000 from York Merchant Adventurers for her business plan and took a gap year to visit Africa to test out her idea.

Miss Cummins made six versions during the initial phase of production and helped make more than 50 during the trip where local nicknamed her “The Fridge Lady”.

It has since been successfully rolled out in Zambia, Namibia and South Africa using anything from old car parts to clay and she has won funding to develop another model.
She explained: “I set about looking at how I could make a sustainable version after asking people what luxury they couldn’t live without and one of the answers that kept coming up was ‘fridge’. The First Generation Fridge involves a large outer cylinder made from plastic or wood with a smaller inner one of aluminium with water, sand, wool or soil packed in the gap.

You can read more about Emily and her inventions at her website.

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Happy new year sheddies, I hope this year brings you more shed related antics than 2008.

I hope Shed Week 2009 will be the best ever (If I get my planning done now)

Anyway talking about Shed Week I would like to report that Lloyd Alter, ‘treehugger’ and eco architect has agreed again to be a judge in this years competition, cheers Lloyd.

A bit about Lloyd, who hopefully will be putting his expertise forward for the new Eco-Shed category plus have some good views on the International Shed of the Year.

Lloyd Alter has been an architect, developer, inventor, and builder of prefab housing. He now writes for TreeHugger, is an Associate Professor at Ryerson University teaching sustainable design, and has written for Azure and Ontario Nature magazines. In the course of his previous work developing small residential units and now prefabs, Lloyd became convinced that we just use too much of everything- too much space, too much land, too much food, too much fuel, too much money, and that the key to sustainability is to simply use less. And, the key to happily using less is to design things better.

So if you have an Eco shed, be it made from recycled materials, covered in grass or anything else, then please “Share it” for Shed of the Year 2009.

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The BBC reports

A five tonne boulder came away from a rock face and fell 60ft (18m) into a garden in Somerset, flattening a shed.

The boulder also shifted an oil tank – containing 1,000 litres of oil – up against the back of the house in North Moor Road, Dulverton.

Devon and Somerset fire crews said the area was checked and the house itself escaped damage.

“[The boulder] would have been in the kitchen if the shed hadn’t been there.”

Blimey!! before you open the shed today, please please check that there are no overhangs shadowing your shed also Alex reminds us that this time last year his shedworking wossname was nearly crushed by a tree.

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The gaurdian reports.

photo credit: heyu1021

Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb.

The miniature reactors will be factory-sealed, contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased in concrete and buried underground.

The US government has licensed the technology to Hyperion, a New Mexico-based company which said last week that it has taken its first firm orders and plans to start mass production within five years. ‘Our goal is to generate electricity for 10 cents a watt anywhere in the world,’ said John Deal, chief executive of Hyperion. ‘They will cost approximately $25m [£13m] each. For a community with 10,000 households, that is a very affordable $250 per home.’

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