Follow-up to last week's LEED post

Following up on my recent post on the two LEED certified homes that WMH Investments recently delivered in Alexandria, I went to the US Green Building Council to find out what’s involved. I downloaded their checklist for the homes rating system, basically to get a project certified you need to map out a process for meeting requirements and also have the project assessed by a third party rater.

There are 8 scoring categories, each with sub-categories, which I listed below. Some categories have minimum scoring requirements. Overall, to be LEED Certified, the home must score in a range of 45-59; Silver is 60-74; Gold is 75=89; and Platinum is 90-136.

· Innovation and Design Process
-Integrated project planning
-Durability management process
-Innovative or regional design
· Location and Linkages
-LEED Neighborhood Development
-Site selection
-Preferred location
-Infrastructure
-Community resources
-Access to open space
· Sustainable Sites
-Site stewardship
-Landscaping
-Local heat island effects
-Surface water management
-Nontoxic pest control
-Compact development
· Water Efficiency
-Water reuse
-Irrigation system
-Indoor water use
· Energy and Atmosphere
-Optimize energy performance
-Water heating
-Residential refrigerant management
· Materials and Resources
-Material efficient framing
-Environmentally preferable products
-Waste management
· Indoor Environmental quality
-ENERGY STAR with Indoor Air Package
-Combustion venting
-Moisture control
-Outdoor air ventilation
-Local exhaust
-Distribution of space heating and cooling
-Air filtering
-Contaminant control
-Radon protection
-Garage pollutant protection
· Awareness and Education
-Education of the homeowner or tenant
-Education of the building manager
· Energy and Atmosphere
-Insulation
-Air filtration
-Windows
-Heating and cooling distribution
-Space heating and cooling
-Water heating
-Lighting
-Appliances
-Renewable energy
-Residential refrigerant management

Is it worth it? When the developer at the Gold house in Alexandria showed us the yellow cards from the kitchen appliances, I quickly summed the annual total operating cost at less than $500; I think our old refrigerator was at that level by itself. So it seems like it would be worth it to have a go at adopting these practices.

While the renovations of the Hawksbill Cabin were of an emergency nature (search on Big Projects to see the related blog posts, or click on the tag at the end of this post), there is still a lot of opportunity for us to apply some of these concepts to our ongoing project list. I’d like to think that with some of what we did, we have a good start on Certification – we are certainly not very far along in terms of the other ratings!