Green Roof Retrofit
Sydney, NSW
Watered based on the plants’ needs, not a schedule → 82% water savings → alerts before damage
- Customer
- Commercial tenant
- Location
- Sydney, NSW
- Project
- Retrofit – replacing timer-based irrigation with sensor-driven automation across 4 rooftop garden zones
- Products
- NimbusVerde, CirrusExpander, NimbusNode, Castellatus, Substrate Moisture Sensors
- Partner
- Green roof maintenance partner
The Challenge
Four rooftop zones on the same fixed schedule, no visibility into what the plants need
The green roof at a commercial building in Sydney covers four separate garden zones, all managed through a central irrigation manifold. Timer-based controllers watered every zone on the same fixed schedule – one hour per zone per day, regardless of conditions.
On a 40-degree day, you need every minute of that. After overnight rain on a mild day, you might not need any. The timer ran the same hour either way.
Rain sensors help, but they only detect rain – not whether the substrate moisture is at the right level afterwards. And four zones on a rooftop do not behave the same way – sun exposure, wind, substrate depth all affect how quickly each zone dries out. What one zone needs has no bearing on the zone next to it.
The green roof maintenance partner, who manages the roof for the building owner, reached out to Cloud Grow knowing there was a better approach.
