Greentech Reviews The New LEED for Homes Scoring Tool
Recently added by the U.S. Green Building Council to their growing list of nine LEED certifications for energy efficient design and construction, the online LEED for Homes Scoring Tool will provide building professional with a detailed way to track LEED for Homes rating points for residential projects.
Through either a snapshot Quickscore or a more lengthy Credit By Credit approach the builder has the option to track the dwelling’s specifications in the following categories: Innovation in Design Process (ID) Location and Linkages (LL) Sustainable Sites (SS) Water Efficiency (WE) Energy and Atmosphere (EA) Materials and Resources (MR) Indoor Environmental Quality (EQ) Awareness and Education)
The Scoring Tool provides a simple online approach to determine the sustainability of a proposed residential project by entering the data from a specific project assigning points based on a yes, no or maybe response.
The Quickscore option can provide a LEED certified, silver, gold or platinum score in just a few minutes for a project, while the longer Credit by Credit approach could take up to an hour to fill out with fairly complex sets of criteria and questions to answer. For the building professional less familiar with the LEED’s third party certification framework, the longer credit by credit approach can seem complex and cumbersome, but provide a very detailed analysis of indoor air quality, water efficiency, building siting and energy efficiency.
The LEED scoring tool can only be used for new construction or gut-rehabs, which unfortunately limit the usefulness of the tool for smaller residential projects that may not meet these criteria. This limitation will hopefully be expanded and amended in the future as the tool’s adoption becomes more widespread. The LEED for Homes integrates with the HERS rating index from RESNET to provide a detailed analysis of the energy performance of the home. Each one point decrease on the HERS index corresponds to a 1% reduction in energy use. Therefore a building with a HERS rating of 85 is 15% more efficient than a HERS reference home. A standard new home is typically rated at 100 on their scale.
The scoring tool will help residential builders become familiar with the LEED for Homes rating system and hopefully provide additional education and insight into the entire LEED third party certification and rating system.
While not perfect, the LEED approach can provide a more sustainable approach to the design and construction of our homes in a more holistic manner.
