I have never quite understood what happens when a building uses many different types of fixtures. We are working on a gated community where all the villas use same type of fixtures but the common facilities like the club house and the spa use different type of fixtures. If there are 1200 FTE then how is one supposed to know how many times the fixtures in the common facilities will be used and how many times the fixtures in the villas will be used? If the fixtures in the common facilities are more efficient, the project team would automatically be tempted guesstimate a higher number of uses in the common areas, hence getting a higher net saving. What protocol should one follow in such a case?

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Crissy Tsai

Sustainability Coordinator

Webcor Builders

LEEDuser Basic Member

40 thumbs up

Mon, 04/30/2012 - 16:35

Yusuf, The standard way to approach this issue is by using appropriate usage groups. You will have to estimate the FTE for the common facilities. Yes, it may tempt the team to estimate a higher number. If the villas are residential units there is greater potential for water savings than the common fixtures, which use the stricter UPC/IPC standards.. For example baseline lavatory faucet in commercial is 0.5 gpm and in residential is 2.2 gpm.

Yusuf Turab

Managing Director

InHabit & BuildScape

LEEDuser Basic Member

18 thumbs up

Wed, 06/20/2012 - 13:17

Thanks Crissy... The development is in Hyderabad, India. So we do not have any UPC/IPC standards. The buyers of the villas are allowed to choose the fixtures they want in their home with some restriction from our side but we have a free hand as far as the common facilities go. So we can get very efficient in the common facilities but we may have to settle for lesser savings in the villas. We have no clue how we can guess the user groups right and how do we justify this to the rating agency?

Tristan Roberts

Representative

Vermont House of Representatives

LEEDuser Expert

7780 thumbs up

Fri, 08/31/2012 - 01:21

Yusuf, one suggestion I make to people is to look for a similar facility in the area or under the same ownership or development group and conduct some research into usage patterns there.

monu goyal

Environmental Engineer

Metadesign Architects Pvt. Ltd.

LEEDuser Basic Member

43 thumbs up

Thu, 09/13/2012 - 04:55

Mr. Yusuf, the best way to define user groups and identifying FTEs for each usage group, you can define less efficient fixtures in villas in comparison to more efficient fixtures in common areas. Common areas will be accessible to all users or visitors but residential areas will be accessible to only specific occupants.

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