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What's Happening from Environmental Building News

July 1, 2009

Standard 189 Close to Complete

After a few bumps in the road, the committee behind Standard 189, a code-enforceable standard for green buildings, has released a third draft for public comment and hopes to have the standard finalized by January 2010. The newest draft makes it clear that what began as a minimum green building standard has turned into a high-performance one. It remains to be seen whether this higher level of performance will prevent Standard 189 from being widely adopted.

The standard has been in development since 2006 under the auspices of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), the U.S. Green Building Council, and the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America. In October 2008, without warning its partners, ASHRAE disbanded the Standard 189 committee, reconvening an expanded version several months later (see EBN Mar. 2009).

Committee chair Kent Peterson, P.E., noted that each revision of the standard has raised the expected energy performance requirements. The prescriptive option for energy performance in the second public draft amounted to 18%–19% energy savings compared with ASHRAE 90.1-2007, according to Peterson, and, although the current draft’s requirements are still being modeled, he believes the savings will be around 23%–25% over 90.1-2007. Among the changes in the current draft is a higher percentage of renewable energy required under the prescriptive energy path.

Although the energy section of Standard 189 gets much of the attention, the other sections round out the environmental performance picture. The standard prohibits development in certain areas, limits hardscape and light pollution, mandates low-flow plumbing fixtures, including 1.28 gallon-per-flush (4.8 lpf) toilets, prohibits multi-showerhead shower systems, and mandates minimum ventilation rate requirements above those specified in ASHRAE Standard 62.1. Requirements for operations and maintenance include commissioning, indoor air quality management plans, and energy and water use tracking. Many of these requirements are similar to LEED prerequisites and credits—and were based on them.

According to committee vice-chair Mark MacCracken, P.E., the committee discussed which was going to have greater environmental impact, “a standard that will be adopted quickly and everywhere or something high-performance that will be adopted here and there.” Standard 189 quickly began to lean toward the higher performance route, he says, which means that it “may not get the [market] penetration of a less aggressive standard.”

However, Peterson says that other standards and codes are also raising the performance bar. ASHRAE 90.1 is currently being revised to meet aggressive energy targets: 30% better than the 2004 version, which is most widely referenced in building codes. At the same time, the International Code Council has convened a committee to improve the environmental performance of model codes. With these changes, Standard 189 will need to be continually revised to maintain its high-performance status.

– Allyson Wendt

For more information:

Standard 189 Committee
spc189.ashraepcs.org

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