LEED NC (BD+C) - High Rise Residential Building - CO monitoring

Srinivasan,

We also had to install CO sensor for a all electric residential building on a LEED homes project. You can try to reason with GBCI, but their logic seems to be that someone might bring some sort of handheld fossil burning equipment into an apartment.

I have the same situation. This 10-story multifamily building will pursue LEED for New Construction which refers to ASHRAE 62.1. My question is, since this a multifamily building should the project demonstrate compliance with ASHRAE 62.2 instead? Are dedicated kitchen exhausts required or are non-dedicated exhaust systems acceptable. Lastly, to further the issue raised above are carbon monoxide monitors required in a building that does not have gas or allow for combustion equipment to be brought in?

My understanding is that for LEED compliance you should pursue ASHRAE 62.2, so an exhaust ventilation scheme with dedicated kitchen exhaust. That's the feedback I've gotten from USGBC, but they haven't yet issued any formal statement about meeting ventilation requirements in MF that I know of. I would encourage you to follow-up with them directly via the LEED Coach and LEED info email addresses to confirm. I'm going to guess that they will require the CO monitors regardless of your project specifics, but that would be worth addressing directly with USGBC too.

Hi folks,

CO monitors are required regardless of the fuel choices in the building. As Dionisio mentioned, the reason for this is to protect against what occupants might bring in to their units. GBCI would consider region-specific exemptions for all electric buildings, but you would need to demonstrate that unvented combustion appliances (space heaters, portable cooking elements such as grills, and backup generators) aren't available for purchase in that region, which would make them exceptionally unlikely to appear in a unit.

As an aside, instead of providing hard wired CO monitors, you can install CO monitors that have a 10 year battery. That could potentially lower the install cost. And most folks install combination CO/smoke detectors, since smoke detectors are already required by code.

Hi Asa,

Your comment states "instead of providing hardwired CO monitors, you can install CO monitors that have a 10 year battery"; however, I cannot find reference to CO monitor power requirements in the LEED v4 Reference Guide.  EQ prerequisite Minimum IAQ Performance simply states that "CO monitors must be installed on each floor of each [dwelling] unit".  Therefore, could the CO monitors simply use regular batteries, regardless of their anticipated life?

Most of the details are in the Reference Guide for Homes Design and Construction, because that is the initial source where the CO monitor requirement came from.

The written requirement is to install hard-wired monitors; the allowance is to install a CO monitor with a 10 year battery - which is the life of the CO monitor.