Our LEED-CI project is fitting within a shell space of a much larger LEED-NC hospital project (while the hospital also owns the clinic that is pursuing LEED-CI, GBCI has already confirmed that LEED-CI would be the most appropriate rating system in this particular case). I have a couple of questions regarding the 50% minimum requirement (and relevance for EAc1.4 depending on which equipment and appliances we include in our calculations) for ENERGY STAR qualified equipment and appliances:
1) The initial specifications called for the same refrigerator/freezers that were being used in the rest of the hospital, but many of these are not ENERGY STAR. The larger refrigerators/freezers (mainly for breakrooms) for the scope within our LEED-CI project are being substituted so that they will be ENERGY STAR, but the under-counter refrigerator/freezers for medical spaces such as laboratories would be more difficult to substitute - the hospital's preferred manufacturer does not provide a ADA-compliant ENERGY STAR model with nearly the same capacity as what was previously specified. Is it possible that we could exclude the refrigerators/freezers that will be used only for medical purposes?
2) Some of the office equipment (e.g. computers, monitors) will be moved from the clinic's old facility. Can we exclude office equipment that the hospital already owns and only include newly-purchased office equipment in the ENERGY STAR calculations?
Susan Walter
HDRLEEDuser Expert
1296 thumbs up
August 8, 2013 - 9:13 am
For #1, you'll have to show that you can not provide that grade of under counter fridges to be able to exclude the preferred unit from this credit by claiming it to be a process unit. Typically, we find these half height units to be of general use grade and getting an ES unit is not a problem. But once you're in a lab the units can be more specialized. If it is a matter of the manufacturer having a non ADA half unit with ES but not a non ADA unit, can you adjust your design for the taller unit?
Christine Robbins-Elrod
Studio Director5G Studio Collaborative,llc.
19 thumbs up
August 8, 2013 - 3:59 pm
I feel relatively confident with that argument for the compact medical-grade refrigerator and freezer that were specified (Summit models FF28LMED and FS62ADA) since Summit doesn't manufacture any ENERGY STAR models for these product types. I'm less certain about whether we could exclude the two general use grade under-counter refrigerator/freezer units since Summit does manufacture ENERGY STAR ADA under-counter units (we do need the ADA height), although the decreased capacity of the ENERGY STAR units would not meet the hospital's needs. The AL-650 and AL-750 units which have been specified have capacities of 5.1 cu. ft. and 5.6 cu. ft., and the largest ADA-height ENERGY STAR under-counter refrigerator-freezer that Summit manufactures has a capacity of 3.6 cu. ft. (all of the ENERGY STAR models have less width).
I found the answer to my second question under EAc1.4 (sorry, I should have read up on this yesterday!), although I have another relevant question...the hospital has already purchased ice machines for the entire hospital, including the clinic. Although they didn't use these ice machines in their previous facility, would it be reasonable to exclude these if we are also excluding all of the office equipment from the clinic's previous facility?
Susan Walter
HDRLEEDuser Expert
1296 thumbs up
August 8, 2013 - 5:24 pm
Do be careful about arguing that one manufacturer doesn't make anything energy star for the function. Ensure that you're looking at other manufacturers and finding a deficit in the industry. It is like saying that you went to all the Safeway stores and there were no apples, therefore, no one is selling apples. Meanwhile, over at the Giant they have apples.
You're likely right about the general use half height fridges. I'm better at parsing out the medical equipment than modelling, however. Hopefully someone else will chime in.
I would say the ice machines are part of the process equipment for the building. And I'm assuming you mean the big ice machines in the nourshiment / pantry rooms.
Christine Robbins-Elrod
Studio Director5G Studio Collaborative,llc.
19 thumbs up
November 19, 2013 - 3:14 pm
Update for others who are working on a LEED-CI healthcare project...I couldn't find any half-height ENERGY STAR refrigerators that would be suitable for a medical use after researching a number of manufacturers, but I did find out that the EPA is working on developing a new ENERGY STAR specification for laboratory-grade refrigerators and freezers:
http://www.energystar.gov/products/specs/laboratory_grade_refrigerators_...