Comparing Actual and Designed Water Demand in Australian Multilevel Residential Buildings

There is now evidence that many long-standing international plumbing codes significantly overestimate the peak water demand in multilevel residential buildings. The overestimation of this design value may have adverse effects on construction cost, energy consumption, quality, and safe operation. This research aims to assess performance current Australian New Zealand cold standard for A literature review was conducted development estimation models. practice compared against selected some newly proposed approaches using a fixed apartment layout as benchmark. Following this, paper compares actual four buildings with designed (99th percentile flow) from codes. Results show adjusted 99th flow rates (adjusted raw measurements count impact sampling interval) are only 23%–28% nominal values standard. None standards considered can be readily applied Research needs identified, including interval, practical definition flow, implications reduced pipe sizes, other limitations system practices. serves an informative reference researchers, industry, regulatory bodies working improving their existing standards.