WELL Water Turbidity Issues

Kaitlin Veenstra

Associate Director of Architecture - Sustainability

Ryan Companies US, Inc.

LEEDuser Basic Member

0 thumbs up

August 18, 2023

Hi all,

Looking from insights from anyone who's been through WELL certification before - we've got a lab/office project pursing WELL down in Florida that is struggling to meet the turbidity level requirements of the WELL W01 prerequisite, specifically with the hot water supply, and we're not sure how to best remediate the issue. Should we install filtration closer to the source (i.e. at the water heater), or at every outlet? Additionally, is there anything we can do to ensure we don't have sediment build-up at the mixing valves? Sounds like even our consultant is unsure what the best next step is.

We are new to WELL and water quality is not my strong suit, so appreciate any assistance/thoughts!

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Sarah Gudeman

Principal | Practice Lead

BranchPattern

LEEDuser Premium Member

6 thumbs up

Sat, 08/19/2023 - 14:07

I guess the first question is... is this a new or existing building?
And of course I have more questions too... How's the cold water supppy testing for turbidity? Have you retested at different points in distribution? Is this Pre-Testing for WELL PT or have you had issues passing formal PT after documentation submission?

Kaitlin Veenstra

Associate Director of Architecture - Sustainability

Ryan Companies US, Inc.

LEEDuser Basic Member

0 thumbs up

Tue, 08/22/2023 - 22:03

Hey Sarah! See below for answers to your initial questions:

Yes, new building (substantial completion Jan '22)
Multiple points have been tested by several people at different points, both with a meter and samples sent to a lab. It sounds like it's all water supply (both cold & hot) consistently measuring around 1.2-1.3 instead of 1.0 or below.
This is unfortunately coming up on the PT for our certification review; the project team did not opt to do pre-testing.

Jennifer Kruse

Owner

Strategy 17

LEEDuser Premium Member

2 thumbs up

Wed, 08/23/2023 - 11:35

Kaitlin, Water testing for WELL W01 should be done with cold water, not hot. Run the cold water for a minimum of 30 seconds before pull the test sample. Also, I would double check to make sure the tesing equptment is clean and the vials are not smudged with finger prints.

Sarah Gudeman

Principal | Practice Lead

BranchPattern

LEEDuser Premium Member

6 thumbs up

Sun, 09/03/2023 - 20:49

My first question would also be - is there some kind of turbidity issue with the incoming water supply from the municipal source? Then, if you rule that out you can run through some additional diagnostic testing at various locations. Depending on where the turbidy is being introduced in the system would then inform what remediation action is required.