I expected to see more on this in the archives.

Is there a consensus on the acceptable floor area to include in a LEED
model? I'll talk as though the building is one story for simplicity. It
seems that floor area is supposed to be consistent across credits, which
leads me toward making the sum of the rooms in the model equal the total
foot print, including all interior and exterior walls, as well as
mechanical chases. However, it seems like a lot of modelers like to just
use the interior floor area of each room, which will obviously total to less
than the total footprint area.

For correct modeling, I can see it both ways. For instance, all of the area
of the exterior surfaces should be accounted for (entire footprint), but
ventilation (in cfm/sf) should just be accounting for usable floor area (sum
of interior room areas). How do others approach this, and what experience
have you had with LEED reviewers?

Thanks,

Christian