Hello
We are working in a naturally ventilated LEED CS project. Every office and regularly occupied space will have natural ventilation, but Restrooms will have mechanical ventilation by air extraction. These will be the only mechanically ventilated spaces in the building.
I have two questions regarding this credit:
1. Is a tentative tenant layout completely necessary? Or could we show that more than 50% of the project's area is within 20 ft of windows?
2. In the LEED Online form, one should select if the project is mechanically or naturally ventilated. Ia a project like this, we selected both. A "mechanical ventilation" section appears, and asks for signature from the mechanical designer stating that comfort controls provide a range of options, and are operable by the ocuppants. The mechanical ventilation system installed won't comply with this since its intended to just extract foul air from the restroom, not to provide thermal comfort.
We are kind of confused how to treat this signature spaces and if our "uncomfotable"mechanical ventilation will prevent us from achieving this credit.
Thanks!
Lauren Sparandara
Sustainability ManagerGoogle
LEEDuser Expert
997 thumbs up
November 4, 2011 - 7:11 pm
Hi Luis,
I would highly suggest doing a sample tenant layout to help achieve the credit. Otherwise, it's very difficult to prove that you're meeting compliance with natural ventilation.
If I understand correctly, it sounds like you're mostly meeting the credit through your natural ventilation system, rather than you mechanical system. The credit requires you to meet it through mechanical or natural or both. In this case, I'd prove your compliance through the natural ventilation requirements (restrooms would be excluded because they aren't regularly occupied) and then just provide a narrative on the LEED Online form for the mechanical system that clarifies that your system's mechanical ventilation system is just extracting air and is not contributing toward your credit compliance.
Hope that helps.
Lauren