Hello Everyone:
The project we are working on is an office building applying for LEED CS. The project will have two "public" restrooms in each floor (men/women). These types of institutional office projects normally use Blow-Out fixtures here in Colombia. That's why we were planning to use Blow-Out Fixtures (3.5 GPF) in our baselimne. That was until we saw this document http://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=6493 . It says that when selecting the Blow-Out Fixtures for the baseline, one should also use the 3.5 GPF value in the installed case. It also says, that no credit may be taken from reducing consumption of a Blow-Out Fixture.
In our project we are installing blow-out fixture with a water usage of less than 1.6 GPF (1.27 GPF). What should we do? If we Use 1.6 GPF in the baseline we will loose water saving percentage we were counting on. Does the document applies to our project, since the revision was made after registration? If it does (most probably), should we consider our fixtures as “water closets” instead of blow-out fixtures?
Thanks for the advice
Karen Blust
Green Building ConsultantThe Cadmus Group
124 thumbs up
September 7, 2011 - 6:13 pm
Luis, typically the project’s LEED registration date determines which Addenda, LEED Interpretations and formal guidance documents are applicable to the project. In this case, however, I would recommend following the Water Use Reduction Additional Guidance (updated July 14, 2011) and use a 1.6 gpf baseline instead of the higher blowout fixture baseline. This is the conservative approach and will likely result in a more straightforward review of WEp1.
Luis Miguel Diazgranados
Green Factory125 thumbs up
September 13, 2011 - 12:52 pm
Thanks Karen! I think we will follow your advice and take a conservative approach.
Sonrisa Lucero
Owner / Energy Engineer / Sustainability ConsultantSustainnovations, LLC
138 thumbs up
January 4, 2012 - 2:35 pm
I have had this same problem on a LEED NC project. I have a jail where we are using 1.6 gpf blowout fixtures. We also registered prior to the issuance of the Water Use Reduction Additional Guidance you referenced. I wrote our reviewer asking if this guidance applied to us given our registration date. I was told that because this document is "Additional Guidance" and not an Addenda that it still applies to my project despite the fact that we registered prior to its issuance. This cost us three points.
However, the approach that Karen suggests will still provide water savings (thankfully you are using 1.27 gpf) and will lower your overall water use (1.6 gpf instead of 3.5 gpf) so that any water saving you have project-wide will likely be a more significant percentage. Though, I would think that this is a more aggressive approach since you will still get water savings from your blow-out fixtures opposed to the zero savings that you would get if you followed the guidance and put both your baseline and proposed at 3.5 gpf.
I don't know if LEED would push back on you submitting a 1.6 baseline, but I would imagine not. You are also already more than IPC/UPC compliant with the 1.27 gpf, so you should be ok.