Hi all, 

We are working in a CS project, and just got back the following comment from the LEED Reviewer: 

The SV-A reports indicate that most of the core spaces were modeled as unconditioned assigned to (SUM) systems. Interior core spaces that are surrounded by conditioned spaces, especially spaces with exhaust (like restrooms) that use conditioned air from the surrounding spaces, are indirectly conditioned. It should be noted that indirectly conditioned spaces are listed as a type of conditioned in the definitions section of Chapter 3. As a conditioned, these spaces must be modeled as conditioned. Note that this issue applies to both the Proposed and Baseline cases.

The project has offices in the perimeter with a conditioned corridor that connects with the restrooms and elevators in the core.  We usually model the restrooms as an unconditioned area, since it only has exhaust fans as required by 62.1.  If we model the restrooms as conditioned (as suggested by the reviewer), we would have to assign fan flow and cooling capacity to an area that has not been designed to be cooled, and therefore could get unmet load hours. Additionally, all loads within this space would be transferred to the air and then extracted through the exhaust, so the cooling equipment in the adjacent spaces would be minimally affected. 

Any recommendations as to how we should address this issue?