Any help regarding the reuse of an existing building LEED simulation would be helpful. We are working on an existing building that was a warehouse and is now an office building. The existing shell was un-insulated concrete block walls and an un-insulated metal roof with metal joists. Using the ASHRAE 90.1 guidelines for envelope allows the use of existing envelope, but in the climate zone at-hand our proposed envelope alone represents a 30% energy cost savings. Our question is whether there is an exception or limitation to using existing the envelope if a building use is changed, ours is now an office.
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Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5909 thumbs up
March 23, 2014 - 4:07 pm
In my opinion if your existing situation is an unconditioned space, using the existing envelope in the Baseline does not apply. I base this on the definition of the term building envelope which separates conditioned spaces from the exterior. Your Baseline envelope should be from the Table 5.5-X values.