The Sunset Green Home project is registered under the LEED for Homes green building program, and we're going for Platinum! If you're interested in learning more about the LEED process, read on...
15 months ago, Hurricane Sandy substantially damaged our home, which stood on the site where the Sunset Green Home will be built. For the past several months, members of the project team have been working together to design the new house. We’ve tapped into the expertise of our architect, landscape architect, builder, and other experts in sustainable building practices in what is termed an Integrated Project Planning approach.
Team members: Architect, Bill Heine: LEED AP Homes, Kathryn Cannon; LEED Green Rater, Rich Manning; and Builder, Chris Mensch
Earlier this month, at our second LEED Design Charrette meeting, the team met to focus on systems and infrastructure considerations, as a previous Design Charrette meeting had addressed site planning, building orientation and landscaping issues.
With most of our “big decisions” behind us, it was time to discuss our Preliminary Rating, or LEED certification level we would seek. Conducting a Preliminary Rating is a prerequisite of the LEED for Homes green building program. And it’s the first of three prerequisites in the Innovation in Design Process category. A project that seeks LEED certification must satisfy 25 prerequisites, after which it may choose which of the 136 optional points it will aim to earn from eight major categories.
Each project is different, which is why the LEED for Homes program provides a number of paths to certification. Unlike other LEED rating systems, which have a fixed scale for certification, LEED for Homes makes a home size adjustment; larger homes must earn more points at each certification level than smaller homes. Based on the Sunset Green Home project’s conditioned area of just under 3,600 square feet, we must earn 94 points for LEED Platinum certification. It’s ambitious, but we’ve decided to go for it!
Check out our LEED points page, which we’ll update periodically as we finalize our strategies and point targets.