Last week, I met with our LEED for Homes Provider–Pat O’Malley of Building Knowledge, Inc.–and our Green Rater (Jimmie Sparks from the Neighborhood Energy Connection) to have a FINAL LEED MEETING. Pat asked me my goal: to give everything to him so that we can get certified and I can be done! Since I have done this blog and written on every single point, we did not have a whole lot cover. A few questions did come up, though, which I need to address.
1. Our square footage that we calculated for overall LEED point thresholds does not equate to the square footage calculated by our Green Rater (his square footage is larger). Are we going to be penalized for that? Will we have to increase the threshold for gold-level certification? No, I’m told, it’s okay that our square footage numbers are different. We do not include in the garage or crawl space; he does. So, hopefully we are okay on that.
2. I was feeling a little iffy about a point we are claiming in IEQ 5.2 Enhanced Local Exhaust . Our local exhaust systems work, and meet the prerequisite, but unless we have them on an occupancy sensor or timer, we cannot claim that point. So here’s what we are doing: installing timers on all of our exhaust fans. We have six, and the price ranges from $15-$50 a piece — not a huge expenditure for a point. More importantly, though, we really need and want these! In the winter, when it is warm and comfortable inside and very cold and dry outside, we struggle with condensation issues — especially near the showers. We turn our fan on, and often need to leave it on for 30 minutes. But if we have to leave the house, the fan either runs all day unnecessarily, or we turn off the fan and suffer the consequences. So, we have ordered the timers, which can easily be swapped out with the existing on/off switches. Apparently, anyone who knows anything about wiring could install them on their own, but alas, we have called our electrician. Just to be safe.
3. Last, as we reviewed the Credit Interpretation Request for Awareness and Education, Pat thought I would need to have a newspaper article in order to qualify for that point. I am basically asking for a waiver of one out of three of the requirements, because this isn’t just a web article — it’s an “uber website,” as Pat calls it. He didn’t think the uber website could waive two out of three of the requirements. So, I am working on that. If anyone reading this has any contacts at a newspaper that would like to print a story about the features and benefits of a LEED home in Minneapolis, let me know!
As I write this, Pat is going through the LEED checklist and all my blog postings to verify each of the points. Once he does that, he will submit all of our materials (signed accountability forms, durability evaluation form, durability checklist, LEED checklist), have a conference call with the United States Green Building Council, and then voila! We will have a LEED certified home — the 26th in the State of Minnesota, and the 9th in the City of Minneapolis! Stay tuned….