I am working on a high school project. I have a few questions on how to list transient occupant load for spaces with high occupancy but that are used infrequently. It seems these spaces should not affect LEED calculations (SSc4, WEpr1/WEc3) in the same way since they are not the norm.
1. For instance, the gym has a peak occupant load of 1,000 but is only filled to capacity about 10 times per year. Otherwise the occupant load is much smaller, a couple hundred max. Do I still list peak as 1,000? Are there any exceptions? For instance, adding bike racks (SSc4) for 1,000 more folks who visit so infrequently seems unecessary and it is unlikely that the school will want to do that.
2. Regarding Transient Daily Average, used to calculate water use WEpr1/WEc3, the average is 12 visitors to the school, not including the gym. Do I need to include the gym considering the infrequent use? If so, the daily average for the gym spread out over 250 days of operation is 4 visitors per day (1000/250=4). So 12 + 4 = 16? Is that correct?
Please advise.
You rely on LEEDuser. Can we rely on you?
LEEDuser is supported by our premium members, not by advertisers.
Go premium for
David Posada
Integrated Design & LEED SpecialistSERA Architects
LEEDuser Expert
1980 thumbs up
April 24, 2013 - 2:08 pm
Since there aren't specific rules on how to estimate peak occupancy, one thing to remember is we don't have to use the maximum possible occupancy that is allowed by the building code for a particular room or space - that would over-estimate the number of people using the building.
In this case you'd want to look at your typical peak occupancy for the whole building, not just one space such as the gym. The key is figuring out whether those people are already being counted in your students & staff, or if those 10 events a year bring in 1000 outside visitors. Who are the 1000 people in the gym?
For example, is there an after-school game ten times a year the gym when the rest of the building is fairly empty? Or is there a monthly event during school hours when the gym might be full with students and 200 visiting parents?
If it’s the after-school game scenario, you could average those spikes in visitors out over the year like you have to account for their water use over the course of the year. You may have enough bike parking to meet the 5% requirement of the game-time occupancy, if the rest of the building is reasonably empty, but confirm that.
If there is a regularly occurring event where you typically have 200 visitors in addition to your full FTE count of students and staff, then you’d need to provide additional bike parking for 5% of that peak (10 spaces). Water use would be estimated similar to the after-school game: 200 visitors x 10 times a year / 250 days of operation = 8 visitors.
It’s easy to over-think this number – you’ll probably have some combination of these scenarios, so ball-park estimates are probably fine. The intent is to account for the water use of all the people who come to the building over the course of a year, and to provide enough bike racks at the busiest moment that occurs with reasonable predictability. (As an analogy, the average daily maximum temperature in July might be 95 degrees F, but the historical record is 108 F. We’d use 95, not 108 as the “peak.”)