Let's Say this building is 26,000 sf which the baseline is system 5-6. What if the exception area is 10,000 sf (process load difference >10 Btu/h ft). This will make the rest of building area to be 14,000 sf. Thus, this 14,000 sf needs to be use system 3-4 intead (since it is less than 25000 sf). In this case, the system 5-6 is no longer become this building baseline. Am I correct?
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Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5914 thumbs up
May 26, 2015 - 9:54 am
You got it (except your math is off 2000 sf). :-)
I personally do not agree with this interpretation but that is how USGBC applies it to LEED projects.
Jatuwat Varodompun
DrGreen Building Soultion
26 thumbs up
May 26, 2015 - 10:03 am
Sorry for bad math
In my case, reviewer specificly mentioned that my base building is system 5-6 but they ask me separate the exception zone out. This make the area for system 5-6 left only 23500 sf.
Can we maintain system 5 or 6 for the majority of the building? We are afraid that if we change model too much it will raise other issue. Not all GBCI reviewers are well aware of all CIR. Also, System 5-6 will give the baseline the better result than system 3-4 anyway. Changing from 5-6 to 3-4 requires too much painful work.
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5914 thumbs up
May 26, 2015 - 10:34 am
If the reviewer did not ask you to change the baseline system or suggest that you reevaluate it, then you should be able to get away without having to change it. If they asked you to look at the baseline system selection you should change it.
Haojie Wang
Energy ModelerKJWW Engineering
4 thumbs up
May 26, 2015 - 10:42 am
I have a similar situation where there is a 77,000 ft2 school building, within which there is a 40,000 gym that has 20 btu/hr-ft2 load difference from the rest. Should I apply system 3 on this or system 5? Could you let me know where is the CIR that specify how we treat this?
Thanks
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5914 thumbs up
May 26, 2015 - 11:02 am
If the gym qualifies for exception b to G3.1.1 you must apply it. The exceptions to G3.1.1 are required. The gym sounds like it should be a system 3 and the remainder (37000 sf) a system 5.
I am not aware of any LEED Interpretations that state this policy of subtracting the area when applying an exception. It may make some sense for exception a but i personally do not agree with it in general. If you look at the Advanced Energy Modeling Guide for LEED it can be interpreted as contradicting this review policy. Unfortunately this is one of those hidden policies that I do not think have been made public. For the vast majority of projects this is not an issue.