-
Allow time for documentation
Documenting this credit can take time, since cost and exact percentages of post- and pre-consumer materials must be collected for each recycled item used.
LEED requires the base materials budget to be consistent across all MR credits. The LEED Online credit forms help provide consistency across MR credits by applying the same data to multiple credits. Materials used to earn this credit cannot also be counted for MRc3: Materials Reuse, nor for MRc7: Certified WoodWood from a source that has been determined, through a certification process, to meet stated ecological and other criteria. There are numerous forest certification programs in general use...
Step-by-step credit help
Got the gist of the LEED credit but not sure how to actually achieve it? LEEDuser gives step-by-step help. Members get:
- Checklists covering all the key action steps you'll need to earn the credit.
- Hot tips to give you shortcuts and avoid pitfalls.
- Cost tips to assess what a credit will actually cost, and how to make it affordable.
- Ideas for going beyond LEED with best practices.
- All checklists organized by project phase.
- On-the-fly suggestions on useful items from the Documentation Toolkit, Resources, and Credit Language.
-
Credit language straight from USGBC
Need to check up on the exact LEED credit language from the LEED Rating System on the fly? LEEDuser includes the verbatim language. Members get:
- Easy access to the official LEED credit language with just a couple of clicks.
- On the jobsite without your bulky LEED Reference Guide? Check up on the credit language details here.
- Credit language content is used by permission of the U.S. Green Building Council.
Your credit-by-credit reference library
Why waste time chasing down referenced standards and supporting resources when LEEDuser links you directly to the ones you need? LEEDuser has gathered all the best tools out there and organized them by credit for easy reference. Members get links to:
- Organizations that can give information or help on a credit.
- Standards or studies that are key reference points for credits and prerequisites.
- Articles that help explain important topics.
- Key documents or references for credit inputs.
- Software tools you can use to run calculations or simulations.
Documentation Toolkit
In the end, LEED is all about documentation. LEEDuser’s Documentation Toolkit saves you time and helps you avoid mistakes with:
- Calculators to help assess credit compliance.
- Tracking spreadsheets for materials purchases.
- Spreadsheets and forms to give to subs and other team members.
- Guidance documents on arcane LEED issues.
- Sample templates to help guide your narratives and LEED Online submissions.
- Examples of actual submissions from certified LEED projects.
11 Comments
The link to the AISC site is wrong..
It takes me to a page discussing bolts... Can you please direct me to the correct page?
Thank you,
Alessandro
Tristan Roberts replied Editor – LEEDuser, BuildingGreen, LLC Nov 20 2009
Alessandro, I am having trouble with the AISC website, too. None of the main content pages are loading for me. I've changed the link that we provide here to their homepage, and I hope that they'll sort out their technical problems so that we can find this content more easily.
Nadav Malin replied President, BuildingGreen, LLC Nov 26 2009
It turns out that AISC gets that information from the Steel Recycling Institute (SRIThe solar reflectance index (SRI) is a measure of a material's ability to reject solar heat, as shown by a small temperature rise. Standard black (reflectance 0.05, emittance 0.90) is 0 and standard white (reflectance 0.80, emittance 0.90) is 100. For example, a standard black surface has a temperature rise of 90_F (50_C) in full sun, and a standard white surface has a temperature rise of 14.6_F (8.1_C). Once the maximum temperature rise of a given material has been computed, the SRI can be calculated by interpolating between the values for white and black. Materials with the highest SRI values are the coolest choices for paving. Because of the way SRI is defined, particularly hot materials can even take slightly negative values, and particularly cool materials can even exceed 100.), which publishes it online also. I've changed that Resource listing to link to the SRI page with that document. I think that's better anyway. Here's the link that's now on the Resources tab: http://www.recycle-steel.org/leed.html
Alessandro Bisagni replied Nov 30 2009
Thank you Nadav,
I had found that link as well. Do you think that the higher percentages for EAF-made steel (i.e. 56.9% & 31.4%) can be used and accepted by the USGBC for projects in China?
I would appreciate anyone's opinion on this..
Cheers,
Alessandro
Calculations - Material Cost
1. The calculation section in the reference guide says to multiply the total construction cost (hard costs only) by.45. Does total hard cost = cost with contractor's fee? or = to cost without contractor's fee?
2. Also, the reference guide says material costs include all expenses to deliver the material to the project site. Should this be consistent with 1 above? Include the fee if included in 1 above and don't include the fee if not included in 1 above. Correct?
Thanks,
Travis
Travis Layman replied Chief Estimator, LEED AP, Harman Construction, Inc. Jan 18 2010
Another related question:
Is the material cost = the contract value of the material? Typically the contract value of the material is an estimated value. Actual cost could be more or less.
Thanks.
Nadav Malin replied President, BuildingGreen, LLC Jan 19 2010
Hi Travis,
Contractor fees are typically considered part of the "hard costs" of construction (as opposed to design fees and permitting costs, which are soft costs), so they should be included. That is also consistent with the Ref Guide guidance on your 2nd question--which is to include transportation/delivery fees in the cost of materials.
Regarding Travis' question on actual cost vs. contract value, the preferred approach would be to use actual costs, but if that's hard to get and you have contract values readily available that might be acceptable. Could be worth asking in a CIRCredit Interpretation Ruling. Used by design team members experiencing difficulties in the application of a LEED prerequisite or credit to a project. Typically, difficulties arise when specific issues are not directly addressed by LEED information/guide or trying it that way in an initial application, as long as you're prepared to go back and dig up the actual costs if they require that.
Concrete tracking
Couple of questions on concrete (an assembly).
1. The "Sample Letter to Contractor" makes reference to a "concrete tracking form", which I could not find. Will this be added to the Toolkit in the future?
2. It appears that for all concrete on a project, one has to make a decision whether to separate out the SCMs (per Reference Guide page 373) or not. In other words if considering the entire concrete assembly, recycled rebar or aggregate would typically have a much larger impact (as it is calcualted by weight) than recycled SCMs. So if one calculates the SCMs separately against the total mass of all cementitious materials, it appears that for each concrete element one would have to perform two calculations in parallel - one for the total assembly and one for for cementitious materials only. Is that a correct reading?
Thanks,
Wolfgang
Off-site labor costs
To what extent is shop labor included in material costs? With increases in shop fabrication, this could be a big issue. Clearly there is labor that goes into the manufacture of every product, but at what point do we draw the line? For example, if a steel truss is manufactured in a shop and then shipped to the job site, is the cost of the shop labor included in the cost of the material? What if an entire kitchen is prefabricated? As in, purchased from a kitchen manufacturer, not manufactured off site by the project contractor. Would that differentiation matter? (This is for a 2.2 project.)
Also, if we have to pay a patent fee to use/adapt a product technology, is that considered to be part of the product cost?
Nadav Malin replied President, BuildingGreen, LLC Feb 06 2010
I'd suggest focus on the contractual relationships to sort out the shop labor question. If the off-site shop is run by the contractor or a subcontractor, then what happens there should be a labor cost, not a materials cost. If the shop (or kitchen fabricator) is run by an outside vendor, then they would be a "supplier" and their labor is, for the purposes of the project, part of the cost of the materials.
If it isn't clear whether the fabricator is a supplier or a subcontractor, you could establish a distinction based on whether or not they do any actual work (as opposed to just offering guidance) on the job site.
On the patent question--sorry, can't help you there. I'd say that, until a precedent gets documented, you can include it or not at your discretion.
Anyone else have experiences that might be helpful here?
countertops CSI classification
The guidelines for MRc3 - 7 indicate that only items in Division 3 - 10, 31 and 32 should be included in the calculations unless you want to include all furniture. However, it seems like wood casework is found in both divisions 6 and 12. Is there a distinction between the two? It seems odd that I could count the casework in division 6, but not the countertops because they are in division 12.
Please register to use the forum.