Rating System

LEED BD+C: New Construction, LEED BD+C: New Construction, LEED BD+C: Schools, LEED BD+C: Schools, LEED BD+C: Core and Shell

Rating System Version

v2 - LEED 2.2, v3 - LEED 2009, v2 - Schools 2007, v3 - LEED 2009, v3 - LEED 2009

Inquiry

Background: The Eastside Recycling center in Iowa City, IA will be a campus of 10 buildings / structures owned by the City of Iowa City. These buildings will provide public facilities for post-consumer recycling, materials re-use and sustainability education. As part of this campus, there will be 4 pre-engineered metal buildings. Each will be used for storage of recycled materials, electronic waste, materials to be re-used, and other miscellaneous storage. Only one of the 4 pre-engineered metal buildings has a dedicated office space which will be located in one corner of the building. The campus of buildings will be LEED certified using the LEED-NC for Multiple Buildings and On-Campus Building Projects. It is our intent to include these 4 pre-engineered buildings as part of the LEED certification. Proposed Strategy: In order to reduce energy consumption and simplify building maintenance, these 4 pre-engineered buildings will not be conditioned. Each building will have dedicated large-diameter overhead fans to circulate air, but there will not be a dedicated heating or cooling system. There will be a small office space in one of the metal buildings which will have an operable window as well as an electrical service outlet for a fan in the summer or electric space heater in the winter. These buildings would be defined by ASHRAE 90.1 as an unconditioned space, having less than 3.4 Btu/h*ft2 of floor area (both heating and cooling). As such, these buildings would not fall under the envelope requirements of ASHRAE 90.1. The minimum energy efficiency standards for EA Prerequisite 2 must comply with ASHRAE 90.1, and the performance rating calculations (using a whole building project simulation) for EA Credit 1 must comply with the Building Performance Rating Method in Appendix G of ASHRAE 90.1-2004. Because ASHRAE 90.1 does not apply to envelopes of buildings that are unconditioned space, the 4 pre-engineered buildings do not fall within the requirements of this standard. It is proposed to exclude the 4 pre-engineered buildings in the composite campus energy performance calculations in EA Credit 1 (Option 1) for the group of buildings to be LEED certified. As such, these 4 pre-engineered buildings would be excluded from the minimum energy efficiency levels required by EA Prerequisite 2. Interpretation: Is it acceptable to exclude these 4 pre-engineered buildings from the minimum level of energy efficiency requirements in EA Prerequisite 2 and the building performance rating calculations for EA Credit 1 (OPTION 1)?