Exam room sinks

In LEED HC, clinical sinks are specifically exempt from the calculation and exam rooms are clinical use fixtures. There are a lot of other healthcare regulations and research about the flow rates on these sinks. If your owner is being fairly pushy about it, you need to accept what they are telling you.

My thoughts are that NC will follow the HC guide on the exempting these sinks and I'm pretty certain it would. There is likely a LEED Interpretation or LEED Addenda for NC but I don't have it at my fingertips at the moment. Do write in your narrative that you've exempted the sinks due to the clinical nature and the demands of the clinical environment.

Patient bathroom sinks for inpatient rooms are still included but are private.

WEp1 Water Use Reduction addenda, dated 2/2/2011, states that faucets whose usage patterns and flow rates are regulated for medical or industrial purposes are exempt from this calculation. Exam sink fixtures are not covered by the EPAct 1992 standard, Uniform Plumbing Code, or International Plumbing Code, as required by WEp1 requirements, and can skew water use consumption due to not having a standardized code that defines typical daily uses.

There was also an addenda more recently (Oct. 2014) that clarifies it in more detail - Addenda ID#100001966 :

http://www.usgbc.org/leed-interpretations?keys=ID%23100001966

"For healthcare projects, fixtures used for clinical use related to medical procedures, such as surgical scrub sinks and exam rooms sinks, in hospitals and medical office buildings are excluded from the water use calculations. Medication room sinks, utility room sinks, and other exam / procedure / observation room sinks for clinical use are also excluded. Should exam / procedure / observation room sinks be used primarily for hand-washing, they may be included in the water use calculations at the project team’s discretion under the public lavatory category. If included, project teams should provide a narrative explaining the usage assumptions for these sinks. Lavatories in hospital inpatient bathrooms and inpatient rooms are considered private. The inpatient lavatory and water closet should use the default residential usage assumptions (of five times per day per residential occupant), unless specific project conditions warrant an alternative. Lavatories in hospital inpatient rooms (outside the bathrooms) are considered private if used by patients and/or staff similarly to a residential lavatory, or can be exempt if they are used by staff primarily for medical or clinical use.
Nutrition station (pantry) sinks and hospital staff lounge sinks should be included in the water use calculations under the kitchen sink category."