KISSS Green Roof Benefits

BENEFITS OF KISSS IRRIGATION ON GREEN ROOF SYSTEMS

Use less water than any other irrigation system available
Drastically shortened establishment period
Peace of mind in the event of excessive heat waves or drought.
Increased plant growth
Increased drought tolerance
No need for manual watering in the establishment phase
Web Access to the system 24 hours a day 7 days a week
Most environmentally friendly eco roof irrigation system
For more information regarding the multitude of benefits of green roof systems, both private and public, please visit the Green Roofs for Healthy Cities website at www.greenroofs.org

Additional Benefits of Green Roofs

Sound Dampening- Soil, vegetation and additional waterproofing layers can reduce sound from airplanes and machinery.

Extended Roof Life- Green roofs protect roofing membranes from extreme temperature fluctuations, ultraviolet radiation, and other natural extremes.

Reduced Energy Cost- Layers of a roof garden insulate buildings and can significantly reduce heating bills in winter, and AC bills in the summer.

Storm water Management- Roof gardens absorb rainfall and gently allow storm water to runoff reducing environmental impact.

Heat Island Effect- Rooftops absorb heat during daylight hours and reflect it back into the atmosphere, temperatures above building can be up to 10° higher than surrounding temperatures. Green roofs negate this affect.

Incentives- As "Green" initiatives become more prevalent in urban areas many city's and municipality's will begin offering bigger and bigger incentives for green roofs.

Subsurface Capillary Irrigation (SCI) waters even fast draining green roof soils
KISSS (capillary irrigation subsurface systems), provide consistent coverage even in the most coarse green roof soils. KISSS even applies fertilizer subsurface. This is a feature which just simply is not available with other irrigation systems including sprinklers and drip.

KISSS LEEDs the New Era in Quality and Water Conservation

KISSS provides many options for quality Green Roof, Eco Roof and Roof Garden irrigation including Below Flow Flat, Below Flow Wrap, Safety Flow and the Ebb and Flow MAT. These sub surface capillary irrigation systems provide complete even water application across an entire extensive or intensive green roof application. The Ebb and Flow Capillary Green Roof Mat provides an added bonus It acts as an active drainage layer through a capillary "wicking" process involving the combination of specialized geo-textile fibers, polyethylene plastics.

CHALLENGES TO IRRIGATING GREEN ROOF SYSTEMS
A unique installation also presents unique irrigation challenges. Below are some of the challenges to irrigating a green roof system.

ENGINEERED SOILS
Engineered soils for green roof systems are designed to drain quickly in the event of a heavy rainfall to prevent weight from building up on the roof. For this reason conventional sprinkler irrigation and drip irrigation becomes problematic for eco roofs. Neither system has the KISSS patented impermeable layer to stop the initial downward movement of water in these soils. As with sandy soils, water moves straight down very quickly and must have a mechanism to slow the drainage. Only KISSS offers this mechanism and has proven effective at achieving the soil moisture necessary to keep plants alive.

HIGH WINDS

Rooftops provide a unique challenge in that they see greater wind speed than what is present at ground level. A great example of this is the Target Center in Minneapolis, MN where the rooftop is 120 feet above street level. High winds will render conventional sprinkler irrigation useless and cause tremendous amounts of waste and damage from overspray.