I am working on a project with a number of small quiet rooms. These rooms are approximately 35sf and their purpose is to provide privacy for individuals during phone calls. While they are equipped with a single chair and a small worksurface, the quiet rooms are distributed through an open office landscape where staff have their normal work spaces, and it is not anticipated or intended that they will be used for extended periods.
Because these rooms will be sporadically used by single individuals for short periods of time, the design team does not feel that CO2 monitoring in each quiet room is practical. Is it reasonable to exclude these rooms from the requirement to install CO2 sensors, even though they technically fall below the 40sf/person threshold defining densely-occupied spaces?
Ahmed Younis
Instrumentation and Control Engineer / LEED AP BD+CDar Al Handasah
6 thumbs up
October 1, 2013 - 5:11 am
I think you are right, it is reasonable to exclude these rooms as they not classified as densely occupied spaces.
Sue Clark
Technical SpecialistNCC
6 thumbs up
October 1, 2013 - 10:14 am
Actually, they do technically qualify as densely-occupied spaces: if the density is 25 people per 1000sf (40sf per person) then it is densely-occupied. The quiet rooms have only 35sf for one person. But it does not seem practical to equip each of these small rooms with a CO2 monitor.
Ahmed Younis
Instrumentation and Control Engineer / LEED AP BD+CDar Al Handasah
6 thumbs up
October 1, 2013 - 10:25 am
ooops, you right
I will try to find you an answer.
Ahmed Younis
Instrumentation and Control Engineer / LEED AP BD+CDar Al Handasah
6 thumbs up
October 1, 2013 - 11:44 am
Densely occupied space is defined as an area with a design occupant density greater than or equal to 25 people per 1,000 square feet (40 square feet per person). If the total square footage of all dense space is less than 5% of total occupied square footage, the project is exempt from the requirements of this section. Rooms smaller than 150 square feet are also exempt.
I have downloaded PDF from USGBC, I will try to send it to u
http://www.usgbc.org/credits/eq12
Kathryn West
LEED AP BD+C, O+M, Green Globes ProfessionalJLL
154 thumbs up
October 1, 2013 - 11:14 am
can you post a link to the PDF? or direct us to it? This is a common issue.
Andrew Mitchell, P.E.
PrincipalMitchell Gulledge Engineering, Inc.
LEEDuser Expert
126 thumbs up
October 1, 2013 - 10:16 pm
Ahmed, your verbiage and link are for LEED EBOM. This forum is for NC-2009. There is no CIR for this credit that allows for the use of those exceptions. Another user has reported that they achieved this credit simply by omitting the small rooms from the template. They were never questioned about them, which seems reasonable.
Ahmed Younis
Instrumentation and Control Engineer / LEED AP BD+CDar Al Handasah
6 thumbs up
October 2, 2013 - 2:37 am
thanks Andrew
execuse me all for my mistake :)
Maria Porter
Sustainability specialistSkanska Sweden
268 thumbs up
October 2, 2013 - 2:58 am
I have gotten this credit denied because we didn’t want CO2 monitors in this type of tiny chat rooms. I have also questioned why this credit allows exemptions in some systems but not other for the exact same credit.
http://www.leeduser.com/credit/CS-v4/EQc1
and below under Jan 21st 2013.
John McFarland
Director of OperationsWorkingBuildings, LLC
LEEDuser Expert
42 thumbs up
October 2, 2013 - 9:03 am
Maria is correct. There is no exemption in LEED NC for very small but still densely occupied rooms. The spaces require a CO2 sensor regardless. It may not make sense (and I would say requiring an occupancy sensor that alerts the BAS to the room's occupancy would be a better solution especially for a demand controlled ventilation strategy), but that's the rule and we have to follow it to comply with the credit requirements. As to the project team that omitted the small rooms and were never questioned, shame on them. GBCI should investigate and revoke the credit if that's true. We can't pick and chose which requirements to follow and still say that we are earning the credit.
Tom Martin
Bard, Rao + Athanas Consulting Engineers, LLC7 thumbs up
October 2, 2013 - 9:17 am
To follow up on John's comment, there is no language saying that having a CO2 sensor in the room means it has to have demand control ventilation. The CO2 sensor, for the credit, only needs to alert the occupants when the CO2 levels go 10% above the setpoint.
Kathryn West
LEED AP BD+C, O+M, Green Globes ProfessionalJLL
154 thumbs up
October 2, 2013 - 10:22 am
weird question- what if a small room had a louvered door like this http://www.jeld-wen.com/catalog/interior-doors/louver could it possibly mitigate CO2 buildup issues? I'd imagine that if people are in a room for a very long time it would not be helpful ... I guess this would be a question for a CIR.
Andrew Mitchell, P.E.
PrincipalMitchell Gulledge Engineering, Inc.
LEEDuser Expert
126 thumbs up
October 10, 2013 - 10:49 am
I think if you had louvered doors then you could consider the small space as part of the larger space (if it exists in that configuration) and be able to take credit for the low density area in the larger space.
Agnieszka Rylska
GO4IT SP Z OO SP K29 thumbs up
November 23, 2018 - 5:06 am
Sue, I know that a few years have passed since you asked your question regarding the CO2 sensors in phone booths but I was wondering if in the end you got any clarification from USGBC/GBCI on that matter. I have the same situation on my project and the design team is not finding it reasonable to provide CO2 sensors in phone booths which can be used by only 1 person at a time for a short period of time. I would appreciate some feedback.