ATLANTA - The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) announced that changes have been proposed and committee members are being sought for the new standard for the design of high-performance green buildings published in January.

ANSI/ASHRAE/USGBC/IES Standard 189.1, Standard for the Design of High-Performance, Green Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings, is said to be the first code-intended commercial green building standard in the United States. The standard covers key topic areas of site sustainability, water use efficiency, energy efficiency, indoor environmental quality, and the building’s impact on the atmosphere, materials and resources.

Under ASHRAE’s continuous maintenance procedure, which allows requests for change to any part of the standard to be made at any time, changes have already been proposed.

“Given the high amount of interest in this standard, using continuous maintenance allows us to incorporate current technical information on a timely basis,” said Kent Peterson, chair of the committee. “These changes are then put out for public review and comment, which results in an industry consensus standard.”

Open for public comment are addenda a and b. Addendum a makes the daylighting definitions and criteria consistent with changes recently proposed to Standard 90.1, which sets requirements for energy efficient buildings. Addendum b reduces the space limitation for daylighting requirements. Rather than requiring daylighting in space larger than 1,000 square feet, the proposal would require it in spaces larger than 250 square feet.

Members are also being sought for the committee developing the standard with slots opening July 1. The deadline to apply is March 31. For more information on membership, contact standardssection@ashrae.org.

For more information on the proposed addenda, visit www.ashrae.org/publicreviews. For complete information on the standard, visit www.ashrae.org/greenstandard.

Publication date: 03/08/2010