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NC-2009 IEQc6.2:Controllability of Systems—Thermal Comfort

Individual Control for Transients- Healthcare Project

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MURAT DOĞRU
GREEN BUILDING EXPERT
ECOBUILD
LEEDuser Basic Member
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We have a 650-bed hospital building project registered under LEED v3-Healthcare. Whole building is mechanically ventilated and conditioned. Total building users, including the FTE staff, students, visitors, outpatients and inpatients, are estimated to be 10,191 persons daily- only 1,341 of which are the FTE staff. The building has 209 single-occupant patient rooms. As per the credit requirements, we are expected to provide 50% of the remaining 9,982 occupants with individual thermal controls. In other words, we’re asked to provide thermal controls for approximately 5,000 building occupants most of which consists of transients. Let’s say all FTE staff (1,341 users) are given individual controls. Yet, there remains 3,650 transient occupants who should be provided with individual controls. This seems practically impossible. Besides, these transients will be using multi-occupant spaces rather than individual workspaces. It seems that we can't possibly fulfill this requirement. Are there any exemptions for such cases where transients constitute the vast majority of the building users? Is there anyone who had a similar experience?

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Fri, 07/22/2016 - 14:45

Hi Murat, good question. For the individual thermal control requirement for the remaining building occupants, I would first focus on identifying all the spaces in the project intended for individual use- such as nurse workstations, private offices, open-plan workstations, and reception stations. Figure out how many individuals are occupying these locations and how many of those individuals have access to individual controls when they are in that location. You can then also identify the multi-occupant spaces, which as you have said will likely be used by the transient occupants.

Fri, 07/22/2016 - 16:14

My first question is do you have an HC or an NC project? The next thing you need to do is get a really good handle on your occupants - who they are, how they move through the building, and how this works across each 8 hour shift. Based on your whole numbers, you've aggregated all non staff people into one number. For this credit and may others, you will need to break this down and provide a good narrative. Break out your inpatients first. I have always counted them as 'Residents' with 0 kitchen sink use. Get a second category for infants and toddlers inpatients. They won't count in your bathroom uses. These folks are 24 hour occupants and their room controls count for them. Next break out your outpatients. Controls for this group will work differently depending on the unit they are visiting. Don't go too far down the rabbit hole; keep looking at it from a high level. Now separate out your visitors. To me, these are people who are here to support a patient. Some modalities will have 24 hour visitors - LDR is the first example. Pediatrics is another. Ask the nurse managers on each unit how many and how long each visitor stays. The inpatient visitor should be counted in the patient room where there are controls. The outpatient visitor will likely be staying in multi-occupant areas. Finally, you have your transients and this is probably the hardest group to nail down. I've always looked at them as people in the hospital who aren't there to see a patient. For example, all vendors visiting the building are transients, even the architects and LEED consultants. Why all this talk on occupancy for a controls credit? I found that by really understanding occupancy, I understand how people move within the building and this lets me determine where controls are appropriate and where they are not. I can nail down a narrative very easily. Also, occupancy is key to so many credits like the water credits. Finally, come over to the HC forum. We're a small, quiet group but some healthcare particulars are documented there.
Profile picture for user info_37_2
MURAT DOĞRU
GREEN BUILDING EXPERT
ECOBUILD
LEEDuser Basic Member
1 thumbs up

Mon, 07/25/2016 - 10:20

Dear Larissa and Susan, Thanks for your responses. Susan, this is an HC project. I just posted this comment here thinking that I could reach more people here. We broke down the users according to their space use as follows: Individual workspace users: 1,341 (nurse workstations, private offices, open-plan workstations and reception desks) Single-patient room users + 24-hour inpatient visitors: 418 Multi-occupant space users: 8,432 Total building users: 10,191 To comply with the credit requirements, we are asked to provide 4,991 occupants with individual thermal comfort controls in Table IEQc6.2-1 in the LEED Online form. Although we provide all individual users (1,759 occupants) with individual controls, we cannot show compliance in the form. In the same credit of LEED NC v2009, it is asked to provide at least "50% of the total quantity of individual workspaces" with individual controls rather than “50% of all building users” in the LEED Online form. That’s more reasonable. However, here (in IEQc6.2 form of LEED HC v2009) it is asked to provide "50% of all building users (except for single-patient room users) with individual controls". In cases where multi-occupant space users comprise the majority of the building users, as in our case, it will not be possible to achieve the credit although the intent of the credit regarding the individual users is fulfilled (more than 50% of all individual users are provided with individual controls).

Mon, 07/25/2016 - 14:35

Murat, since the IEQc6.2-1 table is causing issues for your situation, I would use the special circumstances section of the LEED Online healthcare form to provide this information and explain how you are complying with the credit.

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