Rating System

LEED BD+C: New Construction, LEED BD+C: Schools, LEED ID+C: Commercial Interiors, LEED BD+C: Core and Shell, LEED O+M: Existing Buildings

Rating System Version

v2 - LEED 2.2, v2 - Schools 2007, v2 - LEED 2.0, v2 - LEED 2.0, v3 - LEED 2008

Inquiry

This CIR is in reference to ventilation design for a mid-rise residential building in New England. There is a central corridor on each floor of the building, with residential unit entry doors on both sides of the central corridor. All residential unit kitchens include resident-controlled 100 cfm exhaust fans, ducted to the building exterior. 1. At the entry door from the central corridor to most of the residential units, a small entryway exists that is permanently open to the unit kitchen (opening to the kitchen is at least as large as a standard doorway, but no door exists, so there is no way to physically separate the spaces). In some residential units, a portion of the entryway floor space (typically 3 square feet - 8 square feet of floor space) is more than 8 m from a window-wall. In these cases, since the entryway is permanently open to the kitchen, can the unit entryway be considered part of the kitchen, and thus meet the requirements of ASHRAE 62.1-2004 through the inclusion of the kitchen exhaust fan? 2. A minority of residential units in the building (8%) include entry corridors, rather than small entryways, and a portion of the floor space of those entry corridors is greater than 8 meters from a window wall. In those cases, the unit entry corridors will be mechanically ventilated by delivering ducted air from a continuously running 100% fresh-air common-area corridor make-up air HVAC system to the residential unit entry corridors. Can we consider the portions of the entry corridors that are within 8m of the window walls to be mechanically ventilated, and thus base the amount of air delivered to the entry corridors on a minimum of 0.35 ACH for only the portion of the entry corridors that are more than 8 m away from a window wall?