The Metro Health Hospital in Wyoming, Mich., installed a 1-acre, 48,500-square-foot vegetative roof on the facility's administration building in 2006. At the time, it was one of the largest vegetative roofs on a healthcare facility in the country.
Seven years after the vegetation was installed, director of facilities and support services, Robert Van Rees', hopes for the roof's performance have been realized, according to an article on the FacilitiesNet website.
"As the facility manager, I was really nervous about the wildlife," he said in the article. "I was worried about how we were going to fix leaks, but it hasn't leaked yet. I still wonder how we're going to find a leak if it does leak. But we've had no issues with that roof whatsoever."
The roof project was part of the construction of a replacement hospital. The roof was installed in 2006, and the plants arrived in 2007.
"The roof is part of our stormwater management, more so than the energy-savings component," Van Rees said. A study showed that the roof, along with bioswales, would be effective in removing the majority of pollutants from the water before they entered the city's water-management system.
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