Hi all,
Hoping to catch David Posada's eye here, but appreciate any help. We have a project (not in US) with roof terrace which we use as a breakout area for building users. The total roof is surrounded by a railing. The roof has an open terrace area, vegetated roof and solar panel covered space and an equipment having area. According to v4.1 reference guide, "Roof area that consists of functional, usable spaces (such as helipads, recreation courts, and areas covered by equipment, solar panels, and appurtenances) may meet the requirements of nonroof measures" So does this mean we can consider our total roof area to meet requirements of nonroof measures and comply with credit requirements?
Thanks in advance.
David Posada
Integrated Design & LEED SpecialistSERA Architects
LEEDuser Expert
1980 thumbs up
July 22, 2019 - 1:02 pm
On a v4.1 webinar last week there was a Q&A session with USGBC staff, and a similar question came up right at the end, so the discussion was a bit rushed and not entirely clear to me. They mentioned there was some confusion about this and I think they said a clarification may be coming out in the the next quarterly addenda. My understanding was they wanted to address usable spaces such as occupiable terraces differently from areas for equipment & appurtenances such as PV panels and HVAC. I believe the intent is to allow us to exclude equipment areas from the total roof area (as we have in the past) to get to a "net" roof area, and then have the occupiable spaces be calculated with non-roof area SR requirements. In your case, if the vegetated roof is not being walked on & occupied, that would probably count as roof area that is vegetated in the credit form calculations. Does that make sense? Since there's a recent discussion about exactly this, it might be worth an email to technical customer service to confirm.
Reshadee Weerasooriya
Sustainability/LEED Executiveco-energi (Pvt) Ltd.
7 thumbs up
July 22, 2019 - 11:30 pm
Thanks for the clarification David. Yes, the vegetated roof area has paved pathways to be walked on. So that way it becomes an occupied space, doesn't it? But I have a related question if you could please clarify. Our intention is to use the same vegetated roof portion to count towards open space credit. Would this effect if we consider the vegetated roof as an occupied space and part of our gross floor area?
David Posada
Integrated Design & LEED SpecialistSERA Architects
LEEDuser Expert
1980 thumbs up
July 23, 2019 - 1:57 pm
Yes, it sounds like your vegetated roof would count as occupiable "functional, usable space" for the Heat Island credit and it could also count toward the Open Space credit as "Extensive or intensive vegetated roofs that are physically accessible."
I'm assuming you meant to say "gross roof area" rather than gross floor area (gross floor area only includes conditioned, interior spaces). I haven't tried this yet, but I'm not sure the calculations in the current v4 LEED form will work properly if we use the non-roof SR metrics for a portion of the roof area. Might have to use the Special Circumstances form to explain any issues you run into.
If you haven't already found this, you may want to look at the document linked from "LEED v4.1 BD+C rating system tracked changes" on the USGBC LEED v4.1 webpage. This red-lined document lets you see the Tracked Changes from version 4 and helps compare the old and new requirements.
Hope that helps!
Reshadee Weerasooriya
Sustainability/LEED Executiveco-energi (Pvt) Ltd.
7 thumbs up
July 23, 2019 - 11:27 pm
Thank you very much for your help David.
Paula martinez campos
August 26, 2022 - 8:50 am
Hi Reshadee,
did you finally try this credit option and get a reply from GBCI? I have the same situation... Thanks!