Refurbishment and Fit Out / UK / 2014 / 05 - Water /
WAT 04 - Water Efficient Equipment
Information correct as of 12thDecember 2024. Please see kb.breeam.com for the latest compliance information.
Government Buying Standards for Water - KBCN1357
The Government Buying Standards for water are relevant to government departments and organisations. Although they are best practice, they are not a requirement for buildings that are not part of the public sector.
Manual watering - KBCN0553
Where the design team can justify that manual watering provides a reduction in unregulated water consumption, this can be considered as an acceptable method for reducing unregulated water use.
Swimming pools - KBCN0812
Water use dedicated to swimming pools is considered an unregulated water use and should be included in the assessment of this issue.
Temporary irrigation systems - KBCN0147
Temporary watering arrangements set up purely to allow plant species or a green roof to establish are acceptable for plants relying on natural precipitation during all seasons of the year. Where this is the case, the ecologist's report must confirm the plant species and the expected time for recommended plant species to establish themselves i.e. time period for temporary watering arrangements.
Wat 04 – Filtering correction - KBCN0999
The question below in the ‘Initial details’ section of the RFO tools has been corrected to allow the filtering of Wat 04 in accordance with the technical manual:
‘Does the building have or mitigate any unregulated water demand? e.g. irrigation or soft-landscaped areas requiring no irrigation, car washing, other significant process related?’
This will be announced in February's Process Note.
[KBCN withdrawn] ~ Wat 04 – Refurbishment and Fit-Out assessments - KBCN0913
This KBCN has been withdrawn and is no longer valid. Please refer to
KBCN0999 for relevant guidance.
KBCN guidance superseded.
KBCN withdrawn on 30 01 2018:
Where there are no landscaped areas within the refurbishment or fit-out zone/within developer control, ie there is no irrigation system, and there are no other unregulated water demands for the building, the Issue is filtered out. On BREEAM Projects the exclusion is activated by answering ‘NO’ to the two relevant questions.
Where there are soft landscaped areas, but no irrigation systems specified and there are no other unregulated water demands for the building, the credit can be awarded by default, to recognise that the need to provide an irrigation system has been designed out. On BREEAM Projects, respond with ‘NO’ to the unregulated water use question and ‘YES’ to the one on soft landscaping.
Information correct as of 12thDecember 2024. Please see kb.breeam.com for the latest compliance information.