Filling out the LEED Online credit form for WEc1 – Option 1
Guidance for the LEED Online credit form
Use these instructions as guide to filling out the LEED Online credit form for LEED-NC 2009 WEc1: Water Efficient Landscaping, Option 1: Reduce by 50%. The images of the LEED Online credit forms shown here are samples from a "dummy" project, and are filled out to illustrate how to proceed—not necessarily with complete or data representing a real project. Please use this simply as a guide to the types of information you will need for this form.
Images of LEED Online are used here with the permission of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) .
1.) All options must upload a landscape site plan
2.) Select the option your project is attempting:
- Option 1: Reduce by 50% (2 points) – Select the first option shown...
7 Comments
WEc1 Water Efficient Landscaping (Using Turf)
I'm working on a Child Development Center project in a very wet area of Hawaii (60"-80"+ of rain annually). We are planning to using turf grass for the landscaping without the use of an irrigation system. The adjacent existing Child Development Center and surrounding housing areas are landscaped with St. Augustine turf grass without the need of an irrigation system. Has anyone had any experience with specifying turf grass in a wet climate not requiring any permeant irrigation system to achieve points for the WEc1 credit?
We did that in another project. Just provided a letter from the landscape architect that supports your claim and states that irrigation is not required and not installed for the turf
WE 2.1- 2.3
Has anybody else ever wondered- if the USGBC is really interested in a mass adoption of greener building practices...why then is it so incredibly difficult to get access to information on how to meet their guidelines and actually fill out the online worksheets? Their approach seems completely short sighted and counter productive. If on the other hand the information was all listed on their website "FREE" to whomever...they would be inundated with interested advertisers of green products who would more than pay for their time and expertise AND really move LEED building methods into mainstream instead of elitist or public projects. Something to think about.
Chris, you might be heartened to know that all LEED Online forms used for documentation are now publicly available. There is a "sample forms download" link on LEED Online, and anyone can now sign up for a LEED Online account. For convenience, LEEDuser also links directly to the PDFs for download from the Documentation Toolkits we provide for each credit—for example, you can download the WEc1 form from this page.
Tristan- thank you for your response- but I was not able to get full access to both a working dynamic WE- 2.1-2.3 form nor was I able to find definitions as to what constitutes a "baseline" landscape type, controller efficiency ratings nor any sample project worksheets. I have actually completed 3 Platinum LEED residential projects and 1 Gold LEED Commercial project.
The online submission was ridiculously difficult and time consuming. My main point is- that mass adoption of green standards is essential for LEED or LBC or any green building certification standard to be relevant and meaningful. It is essential that the information be readily accessible to all interested parties. Open source sharing on the internet is one avenue available for mass sharing or ideas and understanding of how we as a species can make a difference NOW in reducing our negative impacts on the planet through more thoughtful biologically complete circular systems that are closed sustainable loops. Take Only What Is Needed and Waste Nothing. This appears to be the target for green building certifications like LEED and Living Building Challenge and earlier versions like Earth Advantage. To adopt these standards people need easy access to ALL of the data, information, and project examples. I have found the information to be difficult to find in a complete and instructional presentation on the web AND to get information for the commercial project I completed last year the $400 LEED Green Bldg. Manual (at the time one of 8 publicly available copies in the NW) had to be shipped
in it's entirety from several hundred miles away because I couldn't even tell the librarian which pages I needed to answer my questions. This is crazy! Thank heaven there is so much more online info available now than a year ago.
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!
Chris
I still make my case that this information should be made available in it's entirety to all interested parties for FREE! to move the green sustainable revolution forward at a meaningful rate.
Chris, I don't disagree with you on the complexity of the information and the difficulty of piecing it together. I do want to try to help you with anything I can do on finding the forms and information you need. Have you checked out our WEc2 page? This has a lot of guidance, and a download of the LEED Online form in the Documentation Tooklit.
WE 1
Thank you--this step by step process is incredibly useful! On a slightly related issue: Anybody notice that the WE 3 template has serious bugs?
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