Wat 02 Water monitoring

Number of credits available Minimum standards Applicability
1 Yes

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4
No Yes Yes Yes

Aim

To ensure water consumption can be monitored and managed, and therefore encourage reductions.

Assessment criteria

The following is required to demonstrate compliance:

One credit

  1. The specification of a water meter on the mains water supply to each building; this includes instances where water is supplied via a borehole or other private source.
  2. Water-consuming plant or building areas, consuming 10% or more of the building’s total water demand, are either fitted with easily accessible sub-meters or have water monitoring equipment integral to the plant or area (see Compliance notes). This applies to recycled water, such as rainwater, greywater or process water, as well as mains water.
  3. Each meter (main and sub) has a pulsed or other open protocol communication output to enable connection to an appropriate utility monitoring and management system, e.g. a building management system (BMS), for the monitoring of water consumption (see Relevant definitions).
  4. If the refurbishment zone is within a site that has an existing BMS, managed by the same occupier/owner (as the space undergoing refurbishment or fit-out), the pulsed/digital water meter(s) for the refurbishment or fit-out zone must be connected to the existing BMS
  5. If the refurbishment or fit-out zone is within a building that is leasehold, the pulsed/digital water meter(s) for the refurbishment or fit-out zone must be connected to the incoming water supply for water using equipment in tenanted areas (see compliance note )

Checklists and tables

None.

Compliance notes

Ref

Terms

Description
Applicability

CN1 

 Part 1: Fabric and structure This issue is not applicable.

CN2 

 Parts 2: Core services All assessment criteria are applicable.

CN3 

 Parts: 3 and 4 Criteria 2 - 5 are applicable.

CN4 

 Minimum standard for this issue

Shell only: the minimum standard will not be applied to shell only assessments.

Shell and core: the minimum standard is applicable, however the assessor may, subject to their justification and evidence from the design team, seek for this to be reviewed on a ‘case by case’ basis.
Simple buildings

CN5 

 Applicable assessment criteria

Criterion 4 is not applicable. All other criteria relevant to the building type and function apply.
General

CN6 

Water-consuming plant or building area

See criterion 2.

As a minimum, this includes the following (where present):

  1. Buildings with a swimming pool and its associated changing facilities (toilets, showers etc.).
  2. On sites with multiple units or buildings, e.g. shopping centres, industrial units, retail parks etc. separate sub meters are fitted on the water supply to the following areas (where present):
    • Each individual unit supplied with water
    • Common areas (covering the supply to toilet blocks)
    • Service areas (covering the supply to outlets within storage, delivery, waste disposal areas etc.)
    • Ancillary/separate buildings to the main development with water supply.
  3. Laboratory: in any building with a laboratory or containing laboratories, a separate water meter is fitted on the water supply to any process or cooling loop for ‘plumbed-in’ laboratory process equipment.
  4. Healthcare: for sites with multiple departments, e.g. large health centres or acute hospitals, separate sub-meters are fitted on the supply to the following areas where present:
    • Staff and public areas
    • Clinical areas and wards
    • Letting areas: on the water supply to each tenant unit
    • Laundries
    • Main production kitchen
    • Hydrotherapy pools
    • Laboratories
    • CSSD/HSDU, pathology, pharmacy, mortuary and any other major process water use
    • Supplementary supply of water from a cold water tank .

CN7 

10% of water demand

See criterion 2.

The sub-meter requirement does not necessarily apply in the following cases, where the assessor confirms there will be no additional monitoring benefit resulting from their installation:

  1. Where a building has only one or two small sources of water demand (e.g. an office with sanitary fittings and a small kitchen)
  2. Where the building has two sources of water demand, one significantly larger than the other, and the water consumption for the larger demand is likely to mask the smaller demand.

CN8 

 Existing fittings and metering

Existing water meters can be recognised where they have a pulsed/digital or other open protocol communication output to enable connection to an appropriate utility monitoring and management system.

CN9

No or few water-consuming fittings Water using equipment includes all equipment assessed under Wat 01 and unregulated water uses, included under Wat 04. Where there is only one single water outlet such as a single basin or kitchen tap and no other water-consuming devices within the refurbishment or fit-out zone, this issue is not applicable.

Methodology

None.

Evidence

Criteria Interim design stage
 Final post construction stage
All

One or more of the appropriate evidence types listed in The BREEAM evidential requirements section can be used to demonstrate compliance with these criteria.

Additional information

Relevant definitions

Staff areas
Refer to BREEAM issue Hea 01 Visual comfort.
Clinical areas
Refer to BREEAM issue Hea 01 Visual comfort.
Patient areas
Refer to BREEAM issue Hea 01 Visual comfort.
CSSD
Central Sterile Supply Department
HSDU
Hospital Sterilisation and Disinfection Unit
Meter outputs
Examples include pulsed outputs and other open protocol communication outputs, such as Modbus.
Utility monitoring and management system
Examples include automatic meter reading systems (AMR) and building energy management systems (BEMS). Automatic monitoring and targeting (aM&T) is an example of a management tool that includes automatic meter reading and data management.

Other information

None.