How to count toilets for handicapped

Marco Abdallah

LEEDuser Basic Member

24 thumbs up

July 24, 2012

Hi! Our project has highefficient toilets with 3.5/2 ltr/flush. Unfortunately the manufacturer doesn't provide these toilets for disabled restrooms. So in disabled restrooms common toilets with 6/3 ltr/flush were installed. Is it allowed to exclude the disabled restrooms from the calculation? If not, is it possible to create a separate fixture group assuming hat e.g. 5 % of employees are handicapped?

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Michelle Robinson Schwarting

LEEDuser Basic Member

98 thumbs up

Wed, 07/25/2012 - 23:20

I don't think you can exclude them. A separate fixture group is the way to go, but you cannot base it on an assumption of the number of employees that are handicapped unless there is some way to prohibit non-handicapped people from using them. (Some people who are not handicapped prefer using these toilets for various reasons, while others do not, so they will likely get used just as any other toilet in the project.) I think the best you can do is take the total number of toilets in the project (by gender) and assign a percentage to the separate fixture group for the number of handicapped toilets divided by the total number of toilets. (Ex. 10 toilets total, 2 of which are handicapped accessible. Therefore 2/10 = 20% of building users use that fixture.)

Hernando Miranda

Owner

Soltierra LLC

LEEDuser Basic Member

231 thumbs up

Thu, 07/26/2012 - 01:37

Marco and Michelle, In tough cases like this I use Fixture Counts. WCs and URs are both counted. A unisex restrooms, typically how handicap restrooms are used, could be used by anyone. You add up al WCs + URs to determine the total count. For females add WCs only. The above are your denominators. Count the number of WCs and URs at flow rate and that becomes your numerator to determine the percentage of access. In the end you have several percentages of different fixtures which you can use to determine occupancy access, or fixture groups. You'll end up with a very reasonable water usage values. Trying to split up usage by estimating occupants who have access only works where can define a hardline on who uses what: such as a prison, or schools with student versus teacher restrooms. The tricky part is taking a reasonable Fixture Count analysis and trying to make it fit in the LEED tool. The USGBC should provide a tool that automatically does the percentage use determination using Fixture Counts but I don't believe they will every do so. I have being the Fixture Count option for many years and have not a problem with the reviewers accepting it. I don't know if they understand what Fixture Counts are because they have never bother to challenge me on it.