>Congrats!! On….something……

>

honestly, I think this image says it all. I spent the last two years, almost to the day chasing this dream and I’ve finally achieved it and I feel somehow empty. My home is officially LEED Silver. First house in Kansas City, MO at 1236 sq ft. I received this illustrious award in the form of an email which also notified me that for an additional fee, I could purchase a lexan plaque to commemorate the event. Know anything about lexan? It’s a petroleum product. Kinda defeats the purpose. Would I recommend it to a client? No way. Not unless it was something they felt strongly in getting. Would I still design sustainably? Absolutely. It’s about making smart decisions, it’s not about the USGBC.

But if your glass is 1/2 full, my home uses 1/2 the energy of a regular Missouri home, 1/2 the water, has flooring that dates to 1890, and, well, it’s home.

>Mining for Gold

>To catch you up:
I found a house needing major renovation in December of 2008. Designed it over the winter, officially purchased it Jan 27th, 2009, began work Feb 1, moved in June. 1236 sq ft, 2 story brick. We wanted to go LEED for Homes, which was out of beta and new to the market in January 2009. So begins our journey:

While we’ve been living in the house now for about 6 months, we’re still working with the USGBC on our LEED paperwork. And by ‘working with them’ I mean ‘arguing with them’. We are down to only a few remaining points and we’re in a solid Silver category. The goal was to see how far into LEED we could get without spending any extra $$ beyond the design. Now, honestly didn’t make that 100% – we had to spend a bit of cash on LEED fees, but it’s been fairly minor. If you’re not familiar with LEED for Homes, there’s a number of self-promotional points you can get. There’s a point for putting a sign in your yard stating you’re a LEED home, there’s a point for education, there are points for other silly things (IMHO) that help LEED promote and don’t do much for the environment. At this point, I’ve managed to design and build and move into the house in ½ the time it’s taken to work on LEED. I can’t imagine going to a client and stating that the design will cost you X, and LEED for Homes will be X*2.

So, our latest debacle is LEED Credit SS 2.1: No Invasive Plants. Let me quote you the entire requirement: “No invasive plants. Introduce no invasive plant species into the landscape.” Seems pretty easy, no? We didn’t do any landscaping (beyond a plan) so I figured this pre-req was a no-brainer. Let me share my recent conversation with LEED:

LEED: You still haven’t shown documentation for SS2.1

Eddy: I haven’t performed any landscaping. Logic would assume that since there was no landscaping – not even any land disturbance, there are no invasive plants introduced into the site.

LEED: We need to see documentation that is required.
Eddy: In reading SS 2.1 it only states No Invasive Plants and doesn’t state anything about any documentation.

LEED: We can’t award the pre-req without documentation.

Eddy: The pre-req doesn’t list any documentation. It is 2 sentences long. I have no idea what to provide to prove that I didn’t do anything. Can I submit a log of spending some time on the couch in lieu of gardening?

LEED: We are requiring a list of invasive plants for your area.

Eddy: Where is that required? I don’t see it listed anywhere.

LEED: I just told you.

Eddy: via email response: http://www.easywildflowers.com/invasive.htm

ug, more LEED

If the USGBC really means to push sustainability and wants to support innovation, could they not increase their threshold and award points for BIM? You can save time and resources communicating via model sharing and they could require model submissions to validate those points (and many others).

So far in the documentation process, I’ve dropped from Gold to Silver. Not because the design is not up to par, but largely due to imprecise documentation at the time of construction or the lack of clarity on the part of the LEED for Homes docs. (for what and how to document).
If it were a commercial building project, I could see where it’s my own fault (architect) for not being more diligent in my documentation process. However, this is residential and the residential building process is a very different animal.

How does creating a workflow help the home owner become more sustainable and how does that help green the planet?

>ug, more LEED

>If the USGBC really means to push sustainability and wants to support innovation, could they not increase their threshold and award points for BIM? You can save time and resources communicating via model sharing and they could require model submissions to validate those points (and many others).

So far in the documentation process, I’ve dropped from Gold to Silver. Not because the design is not up to par, but largely due to imprecise documentation at the time of construction or the lack of clarity on the part of the LEED for Homes docs. (for what and how to document).
If it were a commercial building project, I could see where it’s my own fault (architect) for not being more diligent in my documentation process. However, this is residential and the residential building process is a very different animal.

How does creating a workflow help the home owner become more sustainable and how does that help green the planet?