Shocking. Another counter-productive .gov iniaitive

[Scout26]

LEED would appear to neither.  I have seen and heard from other sources that LEED certified buildings cost more and not nearly as energy efficient as non-LEED buildings.  Color me shocked.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/nov/28/williams-new-green-building-standards-have-taxpaye/?page=2

[Brad Johnson]

They can cost more, but it's relative to a lot of things.  Whomever told you they not nearly as energy efficient is smoking something.  The efficiency requirements for LEED are significantly higher than your garden variety construction.

Also, many cost comparisons are strictly up-front affairs.  They conveniently ignore the long-term energy savings and financial benefits of EOL planning.

Also, their so-called "performance analysis" was done not by an accredited lab or noted research entity.  It was done by the Washington Examiner.  A newspaper.  I trust that about as much as I trust CNN to give unbiased political commentary.

LEED has it's limitations and has suffered from some amount of overhype, but it's still gives decent mechanical and general performance benchmarks even if you don't care for some of the more esoteric greenification stuff.

Brad 

[Matthew Carberry]

They can cost more, but it's relative to a lot of things.  Whomever told you they not nearly as energy efficient is smoking something.  The efficiency requirements for LEED are significantly higher than your garden variety construction.

Also, many cost comparisons are strictly up-front affairs.  They conveniently ignore the long-term energy savings and financial benefits of EOL planning.

Also, their so-called "performance analysis" was done not by an accredited lab or noted research entity.  It was done by the Washington Examiner.  A newspaper.  I trust that about as much as I trust CNN to give unbiased political commentary.

LEED has it's limitations and has suffered from some amount of overhype, but it's still gives decent mechanical and general performance benchmarks even if you don't care for some of the more esoteric greenification stuff.

Brad 

^ This.

It can be argued whether for a given building going for LEED actually pencils out cost-wise, but that's true of any long-term investment and has nothing to do with the .gov.

[zahc]

I think I don't understand LEEDs. It may explain a few things. Thanks for giving me something to google.

I was amused by the new semiconductor fab TI built in richardson...solar powered walkway lights, flushless urinals, and those automatic lights in the offices that always turn off on you unless you wave your hands around every few minutes...the offfice space dwarfed by tens of thousands of sq ft of cleanroom, air conditioned to 21.0C, untold kilowatts of fans maintaining laminar airflow, using thousands of gallons of water per shift. But hey...flushless urinals.

[Ben]

I've been in a LEEDs Gold building for about a half year now. Beforehand I was never a big LEEDs fan. Since being in the building I've learned that I've had some misconceptions, but also some accurate perceptions about LEEDs. Some random stuff:

It's expensive, no doubt about that. Our local Congresswoman insisted on Gold LEEDs minimum when she said that we had to move into a new building that she funded with her PAC funds, your tax dollars. 15,000 sq ft, $8.1 mil, with the university campus we're on donating the land and running the construction (and being given eventual ownership of the building in a fed to state transfer).

I was griping for several years about how the weekend after they made me move into an eco-friendly, no air conditioning building, that I would be going straight to Home Depot to get a portable AC unit for my office. It turns out that they intelligently designed the building ventilation system. High and low windows, ceiling fans in all offices, and some funky temperature sensitive skylight system that opens and closes to either vent or store heat, as required. I had to eat my words. I am more comfortable in this building than I was in the 1930s Naval Reserve bombproof brick building I was in before, where me and my boss being the only people in the office that are always hot rather than cold, I had the worst insulated, hottest office in the building with a crappy AC unit that I was stuck in because office space is by pay grade, so I had to keep the third biggest office. In the new building I got lucky that the #3 office was on the first floor, so that helps a lot with keeping my office cooler. It's been staying close to 72 since we've been in the building. So I'm impressed with the eco-friendly cooling solution.

The eco-friendly heating solution is apparently not so hot. I've never turned my heater on, but it apparently only has a 6-8deg range, using some kind of seawater exchange system to grab a temperature delta from water piped through pipes on the roof and underground. All the cold people in the office are always freezing, even on the second floor. This is apparently a high tech and expensive energy saver. There is apparently also a seawater exchange system for the 'air conditioning" in the IDF / server room in the building. I've already had that (expensive) system fail twice on me, sending temps up into the high 80s in a room that is supposed to be kept at 73. When it works, it does keep the room at constant temp.

The crappy thing about both heating and cooling is that they require occupant behavioral changes for them to work properly. Some upstairs windows have to be kept open at night certain times of the year or the building won't "breath", and for proper cooling, everyone is supposed to keep their office doors open all the time, which kind of defeats the purpose of a door. As I keep a GSA security container, I get to keep my door closed whenever I want, and because my office faces the ocean, an open window cools me down just fine, bur of course it means I'm not "contributing" cooling to the other building occupants (It takes a village!).

Other dumb stuff, that really doesn't have anything to do with energy savings in the building itself, are the "social environmental" things that had to be done for a Gold rating. For instance, part of the street facing exterior wall is some fancy South American renewable wood. Again, really expensive versus getting a domestic product, and we certainly have renewable wood in the US. Other social environmental things include us not having paper towels, except in the kitchen, not using plastic water bottles in the building (which I do just out of spite, and I like to toss a couple of plastic bottles into a trash can just before a LEEDS tour), no paper plates (they put a dishwasher in for us and provided plates and glassware) and other typical "behaviors" of your average Prius drivers.

So I have seen some workable solutions that are likely cheaper than conventional solutions (like the ventilation system vs AC), some probably workable, but very expensive solutions, and plenty of outright phony baloney eco-hippie living social stuff.

[French G.]

LEED done correctly may be expensive but will yield decent energy efficiency. But then you can get points toward your certification with greenwash BS like putting up an electric vehicle parking spot sign.

[Perd Hapley]

LEED done correctly may be expensive but will yield decent energy efficiency. But then you can get points toward your certification with greenwash BS like putting up an electric vehicle parking spot sign.

I don't keep abreast of new vehicle prices, but my guess is that's really just preferred parking for the well-heeled.

[Hawkmoon]

LEED done correctly may be expensive but will yield decent energy efficiency. But then you can get points toward your certification with greenwash BS like putting up an electric vehicle parking spot sign.

The key is "done correctly." The problem is that being LEED-certified has become today's red badge of courage for every aspiring architect and engineer, so everyone has obtained the certification, and possibly one out of twenty-five actually have a clue about designing an energy-efficient building. Most of it is just fluff.

A couple of decades ago, my good (and competent) friends and I used to complain about "construction managers" (who were basically recycled general contractors who figured out a way to keep on being general contractors while ducking the liability associated with being a general contractor) and "value engineering." Part and parcel of the architect's role is to design a building that's as efficient and as economical as possible. For some retread to follow up and "save" the client a bunch of money by replacing commercial-grade locks with residential-grade crap is just stupid ... but clients still buy into it.

And now were doing the same thing all over with LEED. I simply refuse to get the certification. I'm far too old for such silliness.

[Brad Johnson]

We need to make the distinction that there are both building and personal certifications. Neither is something you just pop down to the LEED store and buy.  Personal certification requires some level of OTJ project management experience, and the passing of a rather extensive and challenging test.  Building certification begins with a comprehensive application process, and the building is granted a certification only if very specific criteria are met.

LEED has definitely become a marketing tool, but it is a simple market response to a public desire.  Supply and demand.  Are there people who do it for less than benevolent reasons?  Sure, but it takes reaching stated and relatively aggressive benchmarks to do so.  There are several things about the LEED criteria that I think are greenification at it's goofiest, but most of them I agree with because they address very specific efficiency and stewardship issues.

Brad

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

LEED has definitely become a marketing tool, but it is a simple market response to a public desire.  Supply and demand. 

Uh, LEED is pushed primarily by government subsidies.  That's the opposite of "public desire" or "supply and demand".

[RevDisk]

The key is "done correctly." The problem is that being LEED-certified has become today's red badge of courage for every aspiring architect and engineer, so everyone has obtained the certification, and possibly one out of twenty-five actually have a clue about designing an energy-efficient building. Most of it is just fluff.

A couple of decades ago, my good (and competent) friends and I used to complain about "construction managers" (who were basically recycled general contractors who figured out a way to keep on being general contractors while ducking the liability associated with being a general contractor) and "value engineering." Part and parcel of the architect's role is to design a building that's as efficient and as economical as possible. For some retread to follow up and "save" the client a bunch of money by replacing commercial-grade locks with residential-grade crap is just stupid ... but clients still buy into it.

And now were doing the same thing all over with LEED. I simply refuse to get the certification. I'm far too old for such silliness.

This.

Another issue is LEED designed vs LEED built. If you do go LEED, you need to up your QA game to compensate, especially when it comes to plumbing. While I view water conservation sourly when it comes to how many gallons I flush, it can be done right but the margins are much tighter when you're designing for "efficiency".

[Balog]

Flushless urinals are vile devices spawned by Satan himself. Even when they work as best they can they are still a plague on the land.

[Scout26]

Yes, LEED designed and built probably do work,  But attempting to retrofit older buildings is akin to putting lipstick on a pig.  Very expensive lipstick.