Factors For Achieving Water Conservation Excellence:

Why-and What-Today's Architect Should Know About Plumbing and Its Relationship to Sustainable Design
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The architect's design strategy should include all water consuming fixtures, equipment, and seasonal conditions related to the structure, as well as specifying fixtures that exceed the Energy Policy Act of 1992. These include waterfree urinals, low-consumption toilets such as pressure-assist 0.8 gallons per flush (gpf) models, low-flow faucets and showers, and electronic Flushometers and faucets.


Easy to install and ADA-compliant waterfree urinals feature a biodegradable sealant liquid for an odor-free and vandal-resistant environment.

For example, waterfree urinals are now readily available in the marketplace and use no water for flushing. In certain applications, these fixtures represent ideal solutions to achieve water conservation goals. In other applications, toilets that use less than 1.6 gpf offer the architect extraordinary opportunities to achieve sustainable objectives (e.g., 0.8 gpf pressure assist).

Making Your Calculations

The intent of the Water Use Reduction section of LEED-NC is to maximize water efficiency within buildings to reduce the burden on municipal water supply and wastewater systems. Architects achieve this by employing strategies that in aggregate use 20% or 30% less water than the water use baseline calculated for the building (not including irrigation) after meeting the Energy Policy Act of 1992 fixture performance requirements.

To meet Water Efficiency Credit 3.1, the architect must submit the following:

  • The LEED Letter Template, signed by the MEP engineer or responsible party (including the architect) declaring the project uses 20% less water than the baseline fixture performance requirements of the Energy Act of 1992; and,
  • The spreadsheet calculations demonstrating that water-consuming fixtures specified for the occupancy and use of the building reduces occupancy-based potable water consumption by 20% compared to the baselineconditions.

To meet Credit 3.2, requirements are the same as above, except instead of 20%, it is a 30% reduction. These could be considered "affordable credits," in that the cost of water-efficient equipment is on par with standard fixture expenses.


Low-consumption 0.8 gpf pressure-assist toilets maximize water delivery force to provide excellent performance often out-performing gravity 1.6 gallon units.

One can immediately see the importance of establishing a baseline calculation in order to fulfill these requirements. The baseline calculation will be the same as the water conservation design calculations (those used to show LEED qualification), except that for the baseline, ALL fixtures are assumed to be performing according to Chart 1 (1992 Energy Act).

 

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Originally published in Architectural Record.
Originally published in May 2005

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