Energy Modeling: Dome (Design) vs. Dome (Baseline)?

Nelina Loiselle

Above Green

LEEDuser Basic Member

173 thumbs up

August 8, 2011

I am working on the LEED Certification of a 23,000sq.ft. concrete "business continuity" dome. It is literally a concrete dome. This building type was selected because it is resilient to hurricane weather and it is also typically more efficient than typical construction types. The engineer for this project says that in terms of energy modeling he think he should compare a "dome to a dome". Doing so, our demonstrated efficiency is a lot less than if we were to compare a dome to a conventional building type. In my opinion, we should be doing the latter because the decision to use a dome over a conventional building was a design decision. But we do not know what to expect from GBCI reviewers. Can anyone advise?

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Kimberly Frith

LEEDuser Basic Member

210 thumbs up

Tue, 08/09/2011 - 14:31

Nena, In ASHRAE 90.1 Appendix G, Table G3.1 Section 5 requires you to use equivalent dimensions for the exterior envelope in the baseline & proposed - I read this as comparing "dome to dome".

Nelina Loiselle

Above Green

LEEDuser Basic Member

173 thumbs up

Thu, 08/11/2011 - 19:59

Thanks Kim, this stinks because our decision to use a dome over a conventional building was an intelligent design decision and if we have to compare a dome to a dome then we will not be rewarded for it. :(

Christopher Schaffner

CEO & Founder

The Green Engineer

LEEDuser Expert

630 thumbs up

Thu, 09/08/2011 - 14:49

By the same logic, it could be argued that one should get credit for building a smaller building than originally proposed, or smaller than what could have been built. (or a different use, or in a different part of the world, etc.) It's a slippery slope - pretty quickly we lose track of what 90.1 is trying to measure. That's why 90.1 established ground rules - the line has to be drawn somewhere. In your case, you're stuck on the wrong side of that line.