Metered faucet duration

Hi Lisa,

This was very painful change in v4 for all of our projects. The USGBC decided that metered faucets basically did not result in water reduction benefit, so we can't take credit for them anymore. The addition of more water reduction thresholds turned out to be fairly useless to most of our projects because low flow fixtures are most often not enough anymore and you need rainwater collection or municipal non-potable water to get any significant reductions.

Agreed here. We were/are very dismayed at this change between versions. Our most recent regular ol' office fitout was only able to eek by barely above 40% by having 1.1 toilets, 0.125 urinals, 0.35 lavs (metered), 1.5 showers, and 1.75 kitchen sinks.

Hi - I just want to follow-up on this to find out where exactly its stated v4 that you cannot use metered faucets with lower durations? I can't seem to find this language in the LEED v4 C&I Reference Guide.

Thanks,

Erin

It's in Changes from LEED v2009:

• Duration-based savings from autocontrol faucets with automatic fixture sensors or metering controls are no longer allowed in the design case. Studies have shown that autocontrol faucets do not save water because users frequently reactivate the faucet after initial use or stop washing before the cycle ends.

Erin, just for clarity, you can use metered faucets in your projects; what changed is the way they are allowed to be calculated in the prereq/credit documentation. You must now count them at their full duration, whereas in v3 you could convert to a 12-second cycle.