Premise Plumbing Systems

Premise plumbing systems are responsible for providing clean, potable water and for removing wastewater. Potable water quality is critical to the health and safety of building occupants and needs to be maintained in an energy efficient manner. Research studies and design analyses are being conducted to understand the complex relationships between plumbing system design and operation, water quality and energy consumption. Modeling is one useful tool in conducting these studies. As has been done in the analysis of building energy use and indoor air quality, reference buildings can facilitate such modeling efforts and the make the results more comparable across such studies. This website provides plumbing system designs and documentation for seven reference buildings, which were drawn from the NIST “suite of homes” (https://www.nist.gov/el/energy-and-environment-division-73200/nist-multizone-modeling/case-studies/case-11) for residential reference buildings and the Department of Energy’s Prototype Building Models (https://www.energycodes.gov/prototype-building-models#Commercial) for commercial reference buildings. In addition to architectural updates and plumbing system floor plans, three dimensional schematics of the plumbing systems are provided in the form of Revit files (.RVT). A NIST Technical Note describing the development of these designs and outlining their key features is also provided.