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Site Visit – CSCC Academic Center E

Joshua Lloyd — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:03:07 +0000

After a couple of months of sitting in the office, I finally got a chance to go out to the jobsite for a project that I have been working on for the past 3 years. Construction is scheduled to be completed by May of 2010, and we are targeting a LEED Gold certification for the project.

So here are a few photos that I thought I would share from my recent site visit.

Incorporating LEED into Project Specs

Joshua Lloyd — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:50:22 +0000

“A LEED rating system does not confirm sustainability,” Susan Kaplan, CSI, CCS, a specifier for HLW International in NYC, explained to CSI’s Sustainability Practice Group during a recent meeting.

LEED is not a complete roadmap for running a green project. There will always be new material and system requirements, regulations and standards, etc. These are all LEED “special needs.”

Although it uses a great organizational method that covers attributes including Sustainable Sites, Water Efficiency, Energy and Atmosphere, Materials and Resources, and Indoor Environmental Quality, LEED does not cover the entire life cycle of the project. www.storyofstuff.com was mentioned to emphasize that one needs to view the project from the stand point of the entire life cycle.

In the future, LEED will move toward a multi-attribute focus. ISO standards are beginning to address these attributes through LCA, and to look at products more comprehensively. Today’s owners do not necessarily understand that the products they are getting are not as green as they are made out to be. Michael Fuller, CSI, AIA., NCARB, CDT, LEED AP, member of the GreenFormat Program Management Task Team, believes that in the future, there will eventually be more comprehensive definitions of what constitutes a green or sustainable product.

Continue reading the article at CSI Blog

LEED Credentialing…..Its about time

Joshua Lloyd — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 02:32:34 +0000

As we quickly approach the last week for the current LEED AP v2.2 exam track, I say it is a long time coming. When I first took the exam back in 2004 I was of the opinion that the more people that had their LEED AP the better. Because ultimately it meant more people understood the issues and were on a level playing field in terms of their knowledge.

However over the past couple of years as the LEED rating system has picked up steam, my opinion of the exam has changed. Too many people are taking the exam now and not for the right reasons. Most people who are taking it are only taking the exam to have the LEED AP after their name. It’s all for marketing purposes. They don’t have any additional knowledge. They just studied the reference manual and took the exam. The majority of them do nothing to push the green building movement. Heck, some of the people are not even in the design and construction industry.

So now with the new exam track v.3.0 and actual LEED project experience as a minimum qualification to actually sit for the full exam, people have flooded the testing centers since April. As reported in the article LEED Stampede, 109,000 have signed up to take the exam between April and June of 2009. Where a mere 50,000 sat for the exam the entire year before. That is a lot of people. But you have to ask yourself. How many of the new exam candidates are going to push there projects to the next level? Just because they have a LEED AP after their name, doesn’t mean they actually know what they are doing. Or even care as a matter of fact. They just want that next job.

So I am hoping that with the new version of the exam and continuing education, that you will begin to see who the true LEED AP’s are. The ones that push their projects to the next level and do it because it is what they should do, not because they have to because of their contract.

-Josh

CSCC Project Video

Joshua Lloyd — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 02:49:16 +0000

Well our client, Columbus State Community College decided to create a video of their first LEED building on their new campus. It has been an interesting ride so far during the construction process and keeping our contractors in line with all of their LEED paper work.

At this point we are still targeting a Gold certification. Unfortunatly we still have a year of construction ahead of us to even determine if that will happen. So periodically I will post some construction photos as well as other updates as it may relate to LEED and share some of the things that I have learned along the way.

In the meantime, enjoy the short video.

Video Friday: LEED v3 Video

Joshua Lloyd — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:00:46 +0000

With the release of the new LEED 2009 or better know as v3 on April 27th, 2009, I decided to post a video by the USGBC that really talks about why we should build in a more sustainable fashion. It also documents what went into the development of the new rating system.

Path to LEED Accreditation Shifts

Joshua Lloyd — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:25:33 +0000

New rigor and some red tape come with the new AIA and LEED AP education requirements.

By Tristan Roberts via GreenSource

Image © Dan Page

The popularity of the LEED Accredited Professional (LEED AP) credential, which is open to all professions, has led to the accreditation of over 77,000. By the time the current version of the program is retired later this spring, it is likely that the number of LEED APs will surpass the membership of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), a fairly stable 83,000. While AIA membership is not directly comparable to holding the LEED AP credential, the momentum behind the program is remarkable.

The proliferation of LEED APs has come amid concerns about the program’s lack of rigor, so a major overhaul of the program arriving in late spring should not come as a surprise. The Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI), a nonprofit sister to the U.S. Green Building Council, announced its plans to assume leadership of the program at Greenbuild in November 2008. At the same time, effective January 2009, the AIA made sustainability a requirement for its continuing education (CEU) program, ensuring that all architects will need to integrate green building at least into their education, if not their practices.

Continue reading the article at GreenSource Magazine.

LEED 2009 Reference Guide Review

Joshua Lloyd — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 12:00:47 +0000

The new LEED 2009, or also know as LEED v3 reference guides have just recently been released, in anticipation of the new rating system roll out on April 27th, 2009.

Joel McKellar, the author and creator of RealLifeLEED.com has posted an excellent review of the new rating system and reference guide. So I encourage you to take the time and read his article.

The Big Review: LEED 2009 Reference Guides Released

By Joel McKellar at www.RealLifeLEED.com

NOTE – This is the longest post in Real Life LEED history. You may groan at the thought of reading the text below, but I assure you it’s a much quicker way to get up to speed with the changes in the new LEED 2009 systems then reading through the new reference guide as I did. Man up, read the following, and sound smart around your colleagues.

Continue reading the review at RealLifeLEED.com

LEED Progress & Action Plan

Joshua Lloyd — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:34:08 +0000

Well the last time that I wrote about my first LEED project, we just received our design review comments with on a few comments from the reviewer. Well we submitted our responses to their comments and to our surprise they have accepted all of our credits. So the project still has a fighting chance to receive a Gold certification. Which puts us at the mercy of our contractor.

Which brings me back to our action plan that I have mentioned in a previous post (here). So the spreadsheet has gone through some revisions as we understand more how the credits are to be tracked.

LEED Action Plan

However the contractor is using the spreadsheet as a substitute for the actual product data and or manufacturer letters that we need to have on file for if the USGBC decided to audit one of these credits. And this has been apart of an ongoing problem with this project from day one, incomplete submittals. Which puts us in a hard place to be in. First, we do not want to accept the submittal until we have all the data that we requested in our specifications. However if we reject it without review, the owner thinks we are holding up the project. So it is difficult to keep track of everything when we are getting multiple submittals for each product.

I would like to hear from anyone who has had trouble getting the required information for LEED documentation and how they dealt with it.

-Josh

First LEED Design Review

Joshua Lloyd — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:54:35 +0000

Well just before leaving the office for the day yesterday, we received notification that the USGBC has completed it’s “Design Review” for our offices first LEED project. All in all it was not to bad. Out of 26 credits that we submitted 13 were accepted as is and the other 13 just require some minor clarifications. So no credits were denied. We should be happy about that.

Product manufacturer LEED NON-compliance

Joshua Lloyd — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 17:29:03 +0000

I am publishing this post more for an entertainment value than anything else. As I have been reviewing shop drawings and LEED submittals to make sure a certain percentage of our building materials either have some level of recycled content or are manufactured within 500 miles of our project site as dictated by the USGBC LEED-NC rating system. I am presented with this document as backup information for this companies NON-compliance with LEED and our product specifications.

As you can see I have hidden the identity of the company because there is nothing wrong with their product (fire extinguisher cabinet), and I happen to agree with their statements, however amusing it was at first to read. If we are anticipating this product to get us over the hump to meet our projects recycled content or regional material goal, then we have not been doing our job correctly.