Hello -
Working on an academic project that is incorporating gender neutral restrooms into the building which don't have urinals. I've downloaded the water use calculator that was published on March 26, 2019 which has guidance on the percent of males expeceted to use urinals: "If the project includes seperate all-gender/ADA restrooms without urinals, enter the default value of 95% or a project-specific based on the project's layout and anticpated usage patterns or weighted fixture counts. Is anyone else struggling with this philosophilically? Is assigning genders for water use reduction outdated? Is it better to input the default and have a better reduction number or try to accurately capture what is going on in the building which is going to hurt my score?
Thanks, Hannah
Emily Purcell
Sustainable Design LeadCannonDesign
LEEDuser Expert
368 thumbs up
April 15, 2021 - 10:27 am
Hi Hannah, I remember this language in the calculator coming about due to the common layout of two gendered multi-stall restrooms and one single-user WC-only restroom. Project teams tended to ignore the single-user restroom and over a large building that could add up, especially if the WC or sink were a different flow rate, so that language got added as a nudge to account for those fixtures. So I tend to think of 95% as that layout, and decrease the number if the gender-neutral restrooms are more of the default option for building users. It's definitely rough on the water performance...while I have encountered gender-neutral restrooms with WCs AND water-saving urinals out in the world, they have unfortunately not shown up in my LEED work!
To your bigger point, yes, I've often looked at the calculator and thought "surely there's a better way to count 'occupants who would use a urinal if the restroom has one' than by assuming a count of 'males/females.'" But I guess the whole form is about simplifying something complicated (even if any glance at this forum tells you it's not actually simple!!). Still, as USGBC is incentivizing all-gender restrooms via pilot credits, I'm curious if any thought has been given to helping project teams recoup the point(s) they'll lose here, or if the answer is just that not every LEED credit fits every project.
Dave Hubka
Practice Leader - SustainabilityEUA
LEEDuser Expert
528 thumbs up
April 15, 2021 - 11:24 am
Great response Emily! spot on!!
I am seeing gender-neutral restrooms show up on my smaller retail projects with one 'back of house' unisex restroom.
It is not really a result of the pilot credit language, but rather planned due to the occupancy/use/size of the project - but we plan to pick up this pilot credit. I call this "accidenta-LEED"
:)
Adam Meltzer
Sustainable Design LeadCannonDesign
4 thumbs up
November 8, 2021 - 6:46 pm
Are you using the v4.1 calculator? Why would you not have 0% of males using urinals because there are no urinals? Just curious or maybe I am not understanding your predicament. In many projects I am now seeing All Gender restrooms as a design requirement. The City and County of Denver has made them mandatory for every project. Makes my job easier. If your project team isn't specifying 1.0 gpf toilets then yes your savings and your points will suffer.
Kristian Kicinski
Associate Principal / Director of SustainabilityBassetti Architects
7 thumbs up
November 9, 2021 - 12:01 pm
Adam, what products/brands are you specifying for 1gpf toilets? Are those going into public or private projects? The public school facilities people on my projects are reluctant to embrace anything beyond the 1.25gpf in their standards, so I'm always on the lookout for better performing products to have them evaluate.
Thanks.
Adam Meltzer
Sustainable Design LeadCannonDesign
4 thumbs up
November 9, 2021 - 1:19 pm
Hi Kristian, they are all commercial public projects. The biggest public project is the DEN International Airport where they put in 1.0 toilets in the new Terminal B. There are two sources of information I use. Especially because the water closets need to be WaterSense labeled. The EPA product search is the first. https://lookforwatersense.epa.gov/products/Product-Search-Results-Toilet... Look at Sloan and Toto. The other is a a PERC study that discusses how to design low flow successfully. https://www.map-testing.com/assets/reports/PERC-Report_FINAL_Phase-One_N...