Going green and doing your part to hold start the major planet sounds like a slap-up idea . But other thanrecycling , usingcompact fluorescent light bulbsand economize DOE , what else can you in reality do ? Many people have gone green by seekingLEED certificationfor their rest home . LEED ( Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design ) , a program track down by theU.S. Green Building Council(USGBC ) , is a certification for building that have a reduced environmental impact . you’re able to get a abode LEED certified by making improvements under any of the USGBC ’s nine priority categories : sustainable site , water efficiency , Department of Energy and air , materials and resources , indoor environmental caliber , locations and linkages , awareness and education , invention and intention , and regional priority [ rootage : U.S. Green Building Council ] .
Whether you ’re renovate a current home to make it greener or building the sustainable abode of the future from the earth up , qualifying for LEED certification is a complex summons . The standard and guidelines are extremely elaborate . Any builder or contractor that you hire have to follow those rule of thumb and apply numerical reckoning and support to prove they have been follow . The corroboration system is set up as a series of prerequisites ( or necessity ) and credit level . Prerequisites are specific standard your household has to meet to even be consider for certification . Credit points are give for a image of optional improvements . The point , awarded for everything from meet energy efficiency criterion to continue plant - life , add up to a certification grudge . A house need at least 40 point to be certified . Any points above 49 count toward gamey certificate level , including Silver ( homes that earn 50 - 59 points ) , Gold ( 60 - 79 point ) and Platinum ( 80 or more ) . There are a total of 110 potential item a building can receive [ source : U.S. Green Building Council ] .
What are some of the changes and advance that you could make to your house to stipulate for LEED authentication ? Read on to ascertain out .
10: LEED Credits Can Be Region Specific
LEEDmay be an outside certification , but recently the USGBC has phase in credits for unripened building practices tackling region - specific environmental problem . The new " regional priority credits " were introduce in 2009 , as part of an overhaul of the LEED rating [ source : U.S. Green Building Council ] . you’re able to get up to four bonus certification percentage point for rising slope to your family that help work out local environmental trouble [ reference : U.S. Green Building Council ] . For model , if you hold up in a rural area , you might be able to get fillip points for landscaping that prevents erosion intoirrigationwater for nearby ploughland . If you live in a cheery clime , such as the southeastern United States , installing solar control panel might net you some bonus point . There are special credits for each of the 50 state , as well as Puerto Rico and international projects , too .
9: Indoor Environment Matters, Too
Since part of the purpose ofLEEDis to tighten the befoulment make by building , guidelines that boil down energy consumption make sense . But when take through the LEED guideline , it might storm you to learn that the plan awards guide for steps that meliorate the interior tune quality of a building , too . For case , if you add air filtration and moisture control systems to help reducemoldsandallergens , you could score points . There are also some health and safety guidelines , like preventing HVAC vents from connecting between garages and livelihood areas , and piss sure there are exhaust vent installed in kitchen . Other guideline are more focused on personal comfort , including a prerequisite requiring LEED - certify homes to have even heat and cool throughout the firm [ source : U.S. Green Building Council ] . But what does a individual ’s comforter have to do with helping the surroundings ? grant to the USGBC , the air quality in spite of appearance is normally bad than the air calibre indoors , and can lead to wellness problems just like air pollution can [ source : U.S. Green Building Council ] .
8: Location, Location, Location
Location counts when you ’re live on forLEED corroboration . There are incentive points award for where a menage is built ( or , in the subject of a overhaul , where it ’s already site ) in relation to other buildings , neighborhoods and fence infrastructure . For example , your home qualifies for points if its web site is within a half mile of water andsewer lines , because that can prevent resources from being used and country from being disturbed to set up additional substructure [ author : U.S. Green Building Council ] . you’re able to also claim points under LEED if your home is build nigh to other neighborhoods , communities or groups of building .
That might seem strange . Is n’t part of the LEED program ’s finish to reduce wipeout of the natural environment ? Yes , but more dense twist get it easier to take the air places or expend more environmentally friendly transportation , including buses and trains [ source : Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ] . And LEED does have measures to make certain certain environments wo n’t be disturbed . household can claim point for not being settle on floodplains , nearwetlandsor endangered species ' habitats , or on reclaimed park land . Regardless of your site , you ’ll earn LEED credits if it has any " no disturbance zones , " areas where no trees or plants can be disturbed [ source : U.S. Green Building Council ] .
7: ENERGY STAR Standards
AllLEED - certifiedhomes are required to meetENERGY STARstandards as a requirement of the program . ENERGY STAR , a program set up by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy , sets up a voluntary baseline energy efficiency standard for homes . To be certified as an ENERGY STAR home , your mansion must be around 20 to 30 percent more DOE efficient than the average home [ seed : U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ] . For instance , plate can match that efficiency degree through a compounding of factors . install better windows and insularity can boil down the amount of energy used by HVAC systems by keep homes cooler longer in the summer and warmer longer in the wintertime . There are also particular ENERGY STAR - certified appliances and light-headed bulbs that use less energy . you could earn redundant points if your LEED habitation ’s energy efficiency improves on ENERGY STAR ’s minimum efficiency standard [ origin : U.S. Green Building Council ] .
6: Educate Your Tenants
" Awareness and Education , " one of the LEED guideline ' nine expanse of green homebuilding , might seem like it does n’t have much to do with protecting the surroundings . But the corroboration standards include credits for educating tenant or homebuyers about how to use a LEED home to its full sustainable , energy efficient potential . If you ’re working with a LEED constructor or developer , the home can mark points if the builder fill you in on how to keep the home energy effective over the years . For example , the builder could furnish you with detailed instructions for using the rainwater recycling organization and how to limit water use in the dwelling house [ source : U.S. Green Building Council ] . If you engage your home out , you could claim points for produce the same effort .
The logical system behind these credits is simple : A property is only as an environmentally friendly as the way it is used [ U.S. Green Building Council ] . State - of - the - artENERGY STARappliances are n’t really bring through vim if the person who uses them runs an entire wash machine bicycle to clean one shirt . window and insulation that trap heat are fairly much useless if the homeowner runs the heater all winter and keeps the windows open .
5: Conserve Building Materials
Recyclingand conserving resources is conversant to most of us these day . But conserving construction materials ? That ’s not something most the great unwashed think about on a daily basis . LEED guideline , however , overcompensate passably much every leg of a habitation ’s life , include the actual construction unconscious process . So , builder look forLEED certificationare necessitate to make the most out of frame and construction material , such as balance beam , stud androofing materials . [ source : U.S. Green Building Council ] . The limits on waste are extremely specific . There is a specific maximum amount of thriftlessness for each type of building cloth ; for illustration , only 5 percent of all studs used can be waste , and absolutely no roof decking can be put to waste [ source : U.S. Green Building Council ] . A uttermost of 8.3 percentage of the edifice cloth budget can be drop on supplies that are eventually squander [ source : U.S. Green Building Council ] . So if you ’re croak for LEED certification for your newfangled grammatical construction , ensure the builder understand the importance of conserving materials .
4: Control the Urban Heat Island
Theurban heat island effectmight sound like some sort of laughable book superpower or the premise for a dystopian science fabrication picture show , but it ’s actually a real earth phenomenon . Because of gamey concentrations of concrete , metal , I. F. Stone and other stuff that absorb a batch of sunshine , urban areas are usually hotter than rural or suburban areas that have more green space [ source : U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ] . LEED standard attempt to limit this effect by awarding points for using a mixed bag of method to reduce that ambient heat . private road , sidewalks and terrace can be built using exceptional " gamy - reflective power " edifice materials , which.reflect – instead of absorb – a majority of the sunlight that bump off them [ source : U.S. Green Building Council ] . An albedo is a building block of measure used to judge a material ’s reflectivity . high-pitched - reflective power stuff are any that speculate most of the sun that hits them [ beginning : Taha ] .
Your home can qualify for points without using those particular high - albedo material . alternatively , you’re able to use plants and trees to shade off brooding area . Like most sections of LEED standards , the guidelines for how to provide this shade are extremely elaborated and mathematically complex . To come through the points , 50 per centum of pondering areas have to be shaded . You will need to calculate that percentage based on the day of the twelvemonth when tail are the modest ; to be accurate , shading should be calculated for June 21 at twelve noon when the sun is straight overhead [ reservoir : U.S. Green Building Council ] .
3: Say Goodbye to Your Lawn
LEED standards focalise on the landscape intention of a home , not just exterior and interior features of the building itself . The guidelines pay particular attention to how much supergrass you could plant . Anyone who accept care of a sprawling green lawn understands the amounts of water required to keep grass growing and burnished fleeceable . LEED understands too , and so they give credit toward certificate for homes that use less " conventional turf " ( in other word , a grass lawn ) [ source : U.S. Green Building Council ] . Those points are slant depending on what pct of your yard is covered in grass . For K cover 20 percent or less by conventional turf , you may net three LEED points . No points are award if the turf takes up more than 60 pct of the yard [ origin : U.S. Green Building Council ] . Other stipulations over the use of grass admit a ban on turf in shaded areas , or in expanse that are steeply slanted . No matter what percentage of your yard is take up by the lawn , you need to make certain all of the grass is drouth tolerant to qualify for any points . The USGBC recommends using mulch and other plantings to cover the repose [ source : U.S. Green Building Council ] .
2: Use Recycled Water
Water preservation is a major focus of LEED guidelines , and the standards that you follow when certifying your home admit several different style to qualify for point for water recycling and conservation . One choice for conserving piddle is harvesting rainwater . By installing systems of troughs andbarrelsto call for overflow from the roof , you could use rainwater to water system works in the yard , or even for drinking ( once it ’s been sink in ) . you could also modify for points if you install agray water recycling systemin your house [ source : U.S. Green Building Council].Gray wateris non - potable water leftover from clothes washing machine , sink drainpipe and showers that is n’t safe for human intake [ source : Barker ] . Like harvested rain , you may use it to water outside plants , or install a arrangement that recycles gray water system to make it potable . Both of those solutions make headway LEED certification points . Those system can be expensive to install , but you could make up for the cost through farseeing term saving in public-service corporation bills . Some region of the nation even have their own municipal white-haired piddle systems . Hooking up your plate to one of those system can qualify it for credential breaker point , too [ origin : U.S. Green Building Council ] .
1: Think Outside the Box
The LEED guidelines are extremely elaborated , extensive and complex . As you could evidence just from this list , they fastidiously track C of quantity that can make a home more environmentally sustainable .
But you could also claim point for green improvements that the USGBC has never even thought of . The computer programme sets away up to six bonus points for environmental improvements that go above and beyond what LEED has outlined in its guidelines [ source : U.S. Green Building Council ] . Obviously , it might not be possible for every someone to come up with some revolutionary new idea in environmental construction . Even builder or declarer that you engage might not have many fresh ideas , unless they have training in immature building . So , if you want to purport for the highestLEED certificationlevel but do n’t have the foggiest theme how to exceed the criterion , you’re able to charter LEED accredited contractors , designer or designers . LEED accreditation provide special education in environmental building and engineering . Hiring one of those professionals can nett you the six bonus points , and save you the time of trying to invent the next outstanding vigour - relieve technology [ informant : U.S. Green Building Council ] .
