I am working on a CI project where the client is against putting a self-closing door (or any door for that matter) to the copy/printing room inside the project space. Typically, I have ran into this problem before and I can only assume it is because the clients feel the copy/printing room should be doorless so that staff can come in and out for efficiently. But, according to the requirements for this credit, the space needs to have a door to prevent cross contamination. Is there any way around this? Could we make a case to the GBCI reviewer so that room can remain without a door, or should we make a case to the client insisting they need to add a door?
We have a target to meet LEED Silver, and we need every credit we can get.
Andrey Kuznetsov
ESG consultant, LEED AP BD+CSelf Employed
29 thumbs up
May 30, 2024 - 12:02 am
If you are not providing some means that prevents cross contamination that "overrides" absence of self-closing doors - for exsample much higher rates of exhaust air from copy-room that are required by credit or additional specific extractor hood - it would be useless even to start talking to GBCI about exemption since "self-closing doors and deck-to-deck partitions or a hard-lid ceiling" are direct requirements of the credit.
So it's better to make a case to client.
emily reese moody
Sustainability Director, Certifications & ComplianceJacobs
LEEDuser Expert
473 thumbs up
May 30, 2024 - 1:01 am
Hold up - If this is a regular ol' copy/print room for a typical office, and no other chemicals storage is happening there, you are not required to have the self-closing doors. That requirement was really meant for "high volume" print rooms. You can look through the NC page for this credit and search for "copy" and travel back to the v3 pages for more consensus, but the conclusion was always that a machine producing 40,000 or more prints per month was the target for that requirement. Most typical office environments produce a fraction of that.
Any chance your project doesn't hit that threshold?
Andrey Kuznetsov
ESG consultant, LEED AP BD+CSelf Employed
29 thumbs up
May 30, 2024 - 1:49 am
Sure, if it's small room with 2-3 regular office printers/copiers - it's not falls under this credit. For proof - quotation from BD+C refguide, but it's the same: "Copying and printing rooms with convenience printers and copiers only may be excluded. The deinition of convenience printers and copiers is left to the discretion of the design team; convenience machines are generally small units shared by many office personnel for short printing and copying jobs".
For v4 it's differs from v3, and it uses definition of "convenience printers and copiers", and it left for design team discretion to define if it printers are convenience or not. So make description that at your case it's regular usage from time to time by an office staff, not printing in high volumes (of course if it's so).
Dave Hubka
Practice Leader - SustainabilityEUA
LEEDuser Expert
525 thumbs up
May 30, 2024 - 12:18 pm
thumbs up to Emily!
regular 'ol copy/print rooms for typical offices do not require self-closing doors, hard-lid ceilings, or dedicated exhaust.
Edgar Arevalo
Associate18 thumbs up
June 3, 2024 - 4:20 pm
First off, thank you all for your input, I believe I'm getting close to a solution.
Emily, I would have to check with the architect and client about the approximate pages that will be printed per month, but if the copy/print were to house those big multi-function printers, wouldn't the ink toners being used by those machines and stored in that room be considered as hazardous chemicals? The LEED v4 reference guide states hazardous chemicals that are used and stored in a room would need to be prevented from cross-contamination, so wouldn't that apply to a copy/print room that keep those big multi-function printing units and store their ink toners?
emily reese moody
Sustainability Director, Certifications & ComplianceJacobs
LEEDuser Expert
473 thumbs up
June 5, 2024 - 7:56 pm
I have not run into any issues with normal print/copy supplies being stored within the same space. In the few projects I've had that did have the dedicated copy/reprographic rooms housing significant commercial equipment, they had the proper enclosures/features, so we similarly did not have any issues.
If you want to be super safe, you can always email your scenario to LEED Coach and get confirmation on the appropriate path.