Hi,
we are working on an office building under LEED NC 2009 certification.
We have a question about WC dedicated to disables.
If a corporate policy specifies that WC for disables are used ONLY by disables and whatever use by other people is not allowed, may we exclude these WC from calculations about Water Efficiency?
Many thanks!
Michelle Rosenberger
PartnerArchEcology
523 thumbs up
March 31, 2014 - 3:33 pm
Hi Fabio,
My guess would be no, you cannot exclude them. When we have projects with ADA (disabled) fixtures, we use a separate fixture group and assign 5% of our FTEs to those fixtures. If you know the number of users for sure and you could prove it with backup, you could use that number.
FABIO VIERO
Head of SustainabilityManens S.p.A.
18 thumbs up
April 1, 2014 - 12:42 pm
Michelle,
Thank you!
Noriko Nagazumi
Woonerf Inc.74 thumbs up
April 17, 2014 - 7:01 am
I have a follow up question related to ADA fixture groups.
In "A" building there are only water closets and no urinals available on the disabled toilets.
If the users cannot use urinals it seems fair to me to consider the disabled fixture group composed of 100% females and compare water closets against water closets. I know that USGBC guides for a 50/50 ratio of male/female users. How do you submit your documentation?
Thanks in advance.
Michelle Robinson Schwarting
148 thumbs up
April 17, 2014 - 7:33 am
Yes, if there are no urinals in the restrooms, you'll compare WC usage to WC usage. You can still assume the 50/50 ratio, but both male and female FTEs (for this fixture group) will be assumed to use the WC three times a day. If they are dual flush toliets, one of the flushes would be large and two would be small flushes for each person. Since there are no urinals, you would have zero daily uses for a urinal in both the baseline and designed/installed cases.
Melissa Merryweather
DirectorGreen Consult-Asia
245 thumbs up
April 17, 2014 - 8:39 am
Yes, we had a similar case where one small group of people (tellers) used a separate w.c. with no urinal. On the submittal form you have to click the non-standard use box, put in your calculated uses, and submit a separate word doc or PDF in the uploads explaining why there is a non-standard number of uses for that fixture. Sounds complicated but is't really.
Jie Xiong
November 27, 2014 - 10:44 pm
Hi
I have a further question about handicaped toilet. I have a CS project in Hangzhou China whose handicaped toilet is located on the first floor of podium. There are office towers on the podium. If we assume 5% of our FTEs (as Ms Michelle mentioned above), should it only be the FTEs on the first floor or all kinds FTEs in the project? And in reality, no handicap FTEs will work in commerical restaurant, only the coming guests. So can I calculate this usage according to reality or I have to use FTE? Thanks a lot!!
Eva Chen
Senior ConsultantArcadis
2 thumbs up
February 19, 2019 - 10:05 pm
I have a similar case. We are working on a 3-storey office interior project and there has a disable toilet in each floor. The disable toilet is only used by disabled person and other people is not allowed to use it. Considering no disabled person in this 3-storey office (all FTE are healthy), can we exclude the disable toilet in WE calculation?