Our building has 1 shower that will be used primarily for occasional cleaning of stuff like muddy rubber boots... it's adjacent to an ecology lab. It also fills the shower requirement for the bike/changing room credit. There's a gym on campus about 1/3 mile from the building and only 2 staff members who'd ever ride in, and they would certainly use the gym instead of this shower. How many uses do we need to estimate for this shower, which in reality will never be used? This is a classic example of LEED being unreasonable, in my opinion - not that the shower water would add much to our water use even if it was being used regularly, but as a matter of principle!
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Kimberly Frith
323 thumbs up
March 21, 2011 - 12:30 pm
If it's not being used as a shower, why put in a full shower stall? We've worked on military projects which use "boot wash" stations outside of the building for the same purpose you mention above (basically a low-mounted spigot). If it's on your plumbing fixture schedule as a shower and you're installing a showerhead and it could theoretically by some person be used as a shower, and you're counting it as a shower/changing room for SSc4.2, seems to me like it's a shower.
Erica Downs
LEED ConsultantThe Green Engineer
254 thumbs up
April 1, 2011 - 8:27 am
If it's an actual shower (not a spigot), and you are ALSO using this shower to achieve SS Credit 4.2 (bikes), then I suspect you need to include the shower in your calculations (0.1 uses per FTE). However, if you use a showerhead with a low enough flow rate, it might not make much of a difference in your overall water use. If you forgo Credit SSc4.2, and use a spigot instead, you could probably treat the spigot like a janitor or mop-filling sink, which is "unregulated". You might want to play around with your numbers and see which method adds up to more points -- maybe it's not enough to worry about.
kathy zarsky
Systems DirectorHOLOS
15 thumbs up
June 8, 2011 - 3:00 pm
I am working on a project that has safety showers adjacent to some labs that are required by code in case of emergency. These are not intended for regular use, only emergencies. How do these get treated?
Tristan Roberts
RepresentativeVermont House of Representatives
LEEDuser Expert
11477 thumbs up
June 8, 2011 - 3:43 pm
Kathy, this would not be included in the credit compliance calcs, for one or both of the following reasons: their flow rate is not regulated under EPAct 1992 (I'm guessing about this, but I assume a safety shower is a fundamentally different fixture than a regular shower), and they don't have a regular usage group.
kathy zarsky
Systems DirectorHOLOS
15 thumbs up
June 8, 2011 - 11:06 pm
Thanks for your quick response, Tristan. That was our logic as well, but it was a new scenario for all of us, so thought best to add it to the discussion here so others may find it.