LEED for Homes Illinois

Those familiar with the LEED for Homes rating system know there are many prerequisites that all projects must meet prior to Certification. These are spread across the credit areas, so there are prerequisites in Indoor Environmental Quality, Energy, Materials and Resources, and more.

One area that is a bit confusing is the Innovation and Design prerequisite for Durability Planning and Management (ID  prereq 2). This is a two-step process to help ensure homes are durable and built to last by mitigating any local climate variables on the home.  The first step is to identify risks, and the second is to identify strategies to address those risks. For example, if the home is being built in an area with high air infiltration, heat loss, and water infiltration, what design and construction strategies are being used to mitigate these issues?  Read more » »

New Energy Star for Homes Guidelines

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released the Version 3 Guidelines for ENERGY STAR® Qualified New Homes.

The new guidelines are quite a step up from the existing Energy Star guidelines, and specify Read more » »

How difficult is it to document a LEED for Homes project? Many people are familiar with LEED projects done under the commercial rating systems, such as Interior Design and Construction (ID+C) or New Construction, now known as Building Design and Construction (BD+C). Or perhaps you have heard about the large binders of documentation that a project team has to assemble and submit to the USGBC for review and final LEED certification.

LEED for Homes requires less documentation than other LEED rating systems

If you think LEED for Homes has equally difficult documentation requirements, think again.  The reality is that documenting a LEED for Homes project is quite simple.  The main submission is a small packet of pre-formatted documents, the LEED for Homes Project Checklist, which are generated from a single MS Excel file with multiple tabs for different submission information. Best of all, the forms are bundled together in the one single Excel file. Read more » »