855773644-LEED-v5-BD-C-Reference-Guide-Launch-Edition - Page 018

Extracted Content

• Volunteers who only periodically use a building (e.g., once per week)

  • Higher-education classroom students

DEFAULT OCCUPANCY COUNTS

If the occupancy is unknown and cannot be reasonably projected, use one of the following resources to estimate occupancy:

• Default occupant density from ASHRAE 62.1-2022, Table 6-1 [1]

Table 1. Default occupancy counts based on gross floor area, excluding structured parking

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, daycare	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, different methods may calculate occupancy:

1 “The Standards for Ventilation and Indoor Air Quality”, ASRAE, last accessed March 21, 2025, https://www.ashrae.org/technical- resources/bookstore/standards-62-1-62-2.

U.S. Green Building Council LEED v5 Reference Guide for Building Design and Construction, April 2025 Launch Edition 8