855773520-LEED-v5-ID-C-Reference-Guide-Launch-Edition-1 - Page 019
Extracted Content
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Medical outpatients
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Volunteers who only periodically use a building (e.g., once per week)
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Higher-education classroom students
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DEFAULT OCCUPANCY COUNTS
If the occupancy is unknown and cannot be reasonably projected, use one of the following resources to estimate occupancy:
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Default occupant density from ASHRAE 62.1-2022, Table 6-1 [1]
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Table 1. Default occupancy counts is based on gross floor area, excluding structured parking
Table 1. Default occupancy counts
| Col1 | Gross square feet per occupant | Col3 | Gross square meters per occupant | Col5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Regular | Visitors | Regular | Visitors | |
| General office | 250 | 0 | 23 | 0 |
| Retail, restaurant | 435 | 95 | 40 | 9 |
| Retail, grocery store | 550 | 115 | 51 | 11 |
| Retail, general | 550 | 130 | 51 | 12 |
| Retail, service | 600 | 130 | 56 | 12 |
| Medical office | 225 | 330 | 21 | 31 |
| R&D or laboratory | 400 | 0 | 37 | 0 |
| Warehouse, distribution | 2,500 | 0 | 232 | 0 |
| Warehouse, storage | 20,000 | 0 | 1860 | 0 |
| Educational, day care | 630 | 105 | 59 | 10 |
| Educational, K–12 | 1,300 | 140 | 121 | 13 |
| Educational, postsecondary | 2,100 | 150 | 195 | 14 |
NOTE: For residential (i.e., apartment or condo), use the number of bedrooms in the dwelling unit plus one, multiplied by the number of such dwelling units.
NOTE: For a hotel or motel, use 1.5 occupants per guest room multiplied by the total number of guest rooms. Then multiply the resulting total by 60%.
AVERAGE VS. PEAK OCCUPANCY
In prerequisite/credit calculations, occupancy may be calculated in different ways:
1 “ASHRAE 62.1-2022”, ASHRAE, accessed March 31, 2025, https://www.ashrae.org/technical-resources/bookstore/standards-621-62-2.
U.S. Green Building Council LEED v5 Reference Guide for Interior Design and Construction, April 2025 Launch Edition 8