I am working on a new residence hall for a University in which the lower two floors consist of offices, a large multi-purpose room, a seminar room, a learning commons center, a cafe and custodial/maintenance spaces. The top 9 floors have dorm rooms, lounge spaces, and study spaces
There are no kitchens on the dorm floors. The dorm rooms, which have individual FCU's for thermal control within each room, account for approximately 47.5% of the total gross building area. The remaining student floor spaces (i.e. the circulation, unisex restrooms, lounges and study rooms) cannot be adjusted by the "residents". As these spaces and the lower two floors account for over 50% of the total GSF, I am wondering if we can attempt this credit on the basis of those spaces and survey building occupants for the lower two floors as well as the "residents" for the "common" student floor spaces that they cannot control.
What are your thoughts on this? Has anyone attempted something similar in v3 2009?
Allison Beer McKenzie
Architect, Director of SustainabilitySHP Leading Design
LEEDuser Expert
646 thumbs up
March 25, 2014 - 11:12 am
I've always had reviewers stick pretty close to having the survey available to all building occupants. It certainly shouldn't hurt your results to survey the students that have individual control in their spaces.
Cassandra Coffin
March 25, 2014 - 11:57 am
I figured the students/residents would be included in the survey as they are also occupants for the other spaces, in addition to their rooms. But would the survey include questions on their comfort within their rooms? Would the dorm rooms be considered residential since they can control their thermal comfort, or non-residential since they account for less than 60% of the GSF and there are no kitchens?
Cynthia Estrada
LEED AP BD&CSDS Architects, Inc.
48 thumbs up
March 28, 2014 - 12:46 pm
Yes, our project, was awarded this credit in V3 (Gold Certified 2/2013) and it was an amazingly similar situation to yours. I went back and forth with GBCI Technical Customer Service and below is an excerpt from a response including some additional advice for a university dorm project. From your earlier posts, you already know much of this info. Additionally, we did M&V for this project and upon reviewing the results found that further constrains needed to be put on the individual thermostats because when students were cold the tended to crank up the heat or when they came back to their room from working out turned it way down. This makes the survey that much more useful for the facilities staff. From my understanding our campus continues to administer the survey twice during the school year just to make sure they are meeting the students needs and operating the systems as efficiently as possible. I hope this helps-I would include some of this in a Thermal Comfort Narrative.
"Typically residential projects are ineligible for this credit as residents possess greater control over their mechanical systems than the average worker in an office building.
Residential projects are viewed that all occupants as they have control of their systems are always going to be comfortable. As such, there is little room for adjustment/refinement of the system through a verification survey.
Dormitories, however, are not always classified as true residential projects within the LEED rating systems. To be considered residential each of the dormitory units would need to possess both bedrooms and kitchens. Should the units/rooms in your project not include kitchens, then your project would be eligible for this point.
Additionally to be eligible for this credit, it is important that the building operate under one overall HVAC system rather than have individually-controlled systems/units for each unit/room.
There is an additional requirement for the survey of a dormitory, however. Please note - the Survey must be given when the building will be fully occupied - not during breaks/holidays or during non-regular semesters (i.e. summer)".