[Bldg-sim] Bldg-sim Digest, Vol 73, Issue 7

[West, Scott P]

Annie,
You can always certify these buildings together as LEED for Multiple Buildings:
http://www.usgbc.org/resources/leed-application-guide-multiple-buildings-and-campus-building-projects

If they share mechanical plant/equipment, you can put them together in one energy model.  I'm in the comment review phase on a 6 building certification healthcare project.  Two of the hospitals are served by the central plant building (with no other buildings served).  The energy model was performed with both hospital buildings and the central plant building in one model.  The other three buildings are multi-family apartment buildings with stand-alone mechanical equipment.  Those have been modeled individually in separate models.  The Baseline and Proposed energy costs are then all added up for all 4 models to calculate energy cost savings.  This aggregation is performed in a spreadsheet.  This methodology was confirmed with a GBCI CIR beforehand.

If you're certifying multiple buildings together, which it sounds like you are trying to, I've never had problems in the past putting independent buildings in one model (even if they don't share mechanical plant).  Hopefully this doesn't mark an about-face from GBCI on this topic.  The LEED reviewers have gotten better recently about direct communication with the design team.  I recommend you seek clarification from them before proceeding and using lots of hours.

Best of luck,

Scott P. West, P.E., LEED AP BD+C, BEAP, BEMP | JACOBS | Mechanical Engineer | Energy & Power Solutions | 817.222.8512 office | 817.897.1882 cell | scott.west at jacobs.com | www.jacobs.com | www.jacobs.com/energyportfolio


-----Original Message-----
From: Annie Marston [mailto:A.Marston at eb-engineers.com]
Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2013 3:07 PM
To: bldg-sim at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: Re: [Bldg-sim] Bldg-sim Digest, Vol 73, Issue 7

Hi

I would like to add to this discussion, a couple of months ago we had an interesting review comment from LEED on this issue and it has rattled us a little. There is a definition of whether a building is one or two. Off the top of my head I can't remember where it is (sorry for that not terribly useful) but we had a two buildings connected by a corridor all fed with the same boiler and chiller. LEED specifically told us that because it was only connected by a corridor it had to be regarded as two separate buildings. We had to change LEED certifications and redo a huge amount of the energy model in order to split the energy usage in two. I would suggest that you contact LEED to check you are doing the right thing, it will save you hours of pain and money. This is all assuming you are doing LEED, I know that this definition was not in 90.1 it was somewhere else in LEED documentation.

Annie

Annie Marston, Ph.D. LEED AP, BEMP
Head of the Building Performance Group

Ebert & Baumann Consulting Engineers, Inc.
An Enterprise of the Ebert-Consulting Group Washington, DC | Chicago, IL | Denver, CO | Frankfurt, Germany

+++NEW WASHINGTON, DC ADDRESS+++
1424 K Street NW, Suite 500
Washington, D.C. 20005, USA

Main     +1.202.608.1334
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a.marston at eb-engineers.com
www.eb-engineers.com


-----Original Message-----
From: bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org [mailto:bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of bldg-sim-request at lists.onebuilding.org
Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2013 4:01 PM
To: bldg-sim at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: Bldg-sim Digest, Vol 73, Issue 7

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