Plumbing System Models for a Set of Reference Buildings

Published

September 21, 2023

Author(s)

Stephen Zimmerman, Andrew K. Persily

Abstract

Reference buildings have been defined previously and successfully applied to energy and indoor air quality analyses, providing a platform for consistent comparisons between different building design and operation scenarios. One such set of reference buildings, the National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) suite of homes, is a collection of dwellings developed to represent 80 % of the U.S. housing stock at the time of their development [1]. A second set is the Department of Energy's commercial prototype building models, which is a collection of buildings developed to represent U.S. commercial and institutional buildings [2]. These building models allow for the assessment of new technologies and the resulting impacts on building energy efficiency, ventilation, and indoor air quality. In addition to the aforementioned aspects of building performance, water quality and efficiency are also of current interest [3]. A building's premise plumbing system plays a critical role in managing water quality and efficiency by bringing in clean, potable water and removing wastewater and can impact health and safety of building occupants. Using models to evaluate the performance of premise plumbing systems can be useful but most studies have considered different buildings with different plumbing systems. In order to support more consistent modeling efforts, NIST has developed premise plumbing system models for three residential buildings and four commercial buildings and has made them available for researchers and industry to analyze system performance, new technologies, and design & operation strategies. This report describes the seven plumbing system designs, how they were developed and how they can be accessed.

Citation

Technical Note (NIST TN) - 2266

Report Number

2266

NIST Pub Series

Technical Note (NIST TN)

Pub Type

NIST Pubs

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.TN.2266

Local Download

Keywords

analysis, dwelling, potable, premise plumbing, reference building

Citation

Zimmerman, S. and Persily, A. (2023), Plumbing System Models for a Set of Reference Buildings, Technical Note (NIST TN), National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, [online], https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.TN.2266, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=956413 (Accessed April 27, 2024)