Green roofs are often the best available technology for urban stormwater management. Mineral wool usage is a green roof technology that is documented to improve green roof stormwater retention characteristics. Mineral wool’s long history of successful usage in green roofs is documented by the Mineral Wool in Green Roofs white paper
The North American green roof industry is rapidly evolving to improve green roof technologies to provide better stormwater management solutions, while responding to concerns about wind-resistance, fire-resistance, weight restrictions, and nutrient reduction. Mineral wool, when used as part of a complete green roof profile, elegantly responds to all these concerns. EcoCline is one such green roof technology, developed by Furbish.
Mineral wool is a renewable resource with qualities that are highly desirable in green roofs, including high stormwater retention, high durability, and excellent horticultural properties, all within a lightweight green roof assembly. The stormwater retention characteristics of mineral wool are unmatched, as mineral wool retains up to 94% of its volume in water. Further, mineral wool is a highly renewable resource, often produced from slag, or from rapidly renewable basalt.
Low weight is a highly desirable green roof characteristic, as many existing structures are unable to support the added load of a traditional aggregate-based green roof, but might be able to support a lightweight green roof that utilizes mineral wool. Even new construction benefits from lighter weight green roof technology, as buildings can be built less expensively and more sustainably if structural demands are lower.
Mineral wool is a clean technology that not only supports healthy plant life on the roof, it produces clean runoff to benefit downstream ecosystems. Mineral wool based green roofs have been documented to provide 80% total suspended solids (TSS) removal. Green roofs such as EcoCline utilize a patented aggregate media in combination with mineral wool that supports healthy plants but dramatically lowers nutrient runoff, to assist in meeting total maximum daily load (TMDL) requirements.
