I've reviewed several reference guides and I've just gotten myself more confused regarding calculating FTE's. I have a Fire Station that operates with three 8-hour shifts with 14 firefighters each. I've found conflicting information as to whether I have
14 FTE occupants -or-
14*3=42 FTE's -or-
14p*3shifts*8hrs*7days/40hrs = 58.5 FTE since it is a 7 day/week operation?
Can you please clarify?
Also, if the only transients are occasional cub scouts or other tour groups of 10+/- children that may happen once or twice a year (for about an hour on-site), are they to be included in the transients even though they are not "regularly occurring" (to use the LEED language on the form). If you calculate this on an average basis, it works out to a tiny fraction of a FTE user.
Lastly, what's the difference on the Plf3 form between "Total Building Users as a daily average" and FTE occupants? They seem like the same definition to me although maybe we don't include Transients in FTE??
Sorry if these are dumb questions but it's gotten me very confused.
Susan Walter
HDRLEEDuser Expert
1299 thumbs up
November 1, 2012 - 5:05 pm
I think you have 42 FTEs (14*3). There is a place in the MPR forms where you will enter your days of operation as 365 and that should take care of the 'extra' 2 days of operation. The daily average thing is for cases where the building is used differently during different parts of the day or week. Think about how we use school buildings. They have one occupancy during the day, community uses at night and weekends. The daily occupancy gives them a way to 'flatten' out their FTEs. In your case, your 42 FTEs are consistent day to day so your daily average is 42 again. When you are building your WEp1 case, review the uses with the client to understand their usage accurately. Most firefighters I know work 24 hour shifts and you may have a certain percentage of your FTEs that have water use patterns closer to Residents than Office Workers.
For the transient tours, you'll need to ask your client more questions to ascertain their use of the facilities. It does not sound like it is a big use and you may be able to narrate them away.