LEED for Homes: 2010 Wrap Up

A featured rater and water reduction calculator wrap up 2010 for EA as a LEED for Homes Provider.

LEED Rater: Ann Edminster

Background

Ann Edminster is a recognized national expert on green home design and construction. Her new book, Energy Free: Homes for a Small Planet, offers guidance on net-zero-energy home design.

She is a principal author of the LEED for Homes Rating System and consults with builders, owners, developers, supply chain clients, design firms, investors, entrepreneurs, nonprofits, and public agencies. She sits on the advisory boards of several green building companies and is a contributing editor to GreenBuildingAdvisor.com. Edminster has consulted on numerous LEED Platinum Home projects that are targeting multiple high-performance ratings and certifications, including net-zero energy.

Ann Discusses Her Green Rater Role

I work with many different types of projects: single- and multifamily; mixed-use; new homes and gut rehabs; and urban, suburban, and semi-rural. My projects span the full economic spectrum, from custom high-end homes to affordable housing projects. My favorite projects include teams that are eagerly extending themselves to embrace more green building practices than they have in the past, regardless of their backgrounds in green building. The aspects of the green rater role that I most enjoy are coaching the teams in targeting their performance goals, using integrated design charrettes and team meetings throughout the design process, and routine communications. I view my greatest contribution as capacity building: enabling committed professional firms to assimilate new perspectives, processes, and tools into their business models as they go green. Being a green rater is just another way to engage in my favorite pastimes: educating, facilitating, and inspiring change. View Ann's Recently Completed Platinum Project with Earth Advantage: Nove, San Francisco.

Water Use Reduction Calculator

One interesting aspect of the LEED for Homes rating system is that the checklists offer different pathways to receive credits. This often manifests as a prescriptive route versus a performance route. This is the case for the landscaping credits available under Sustainable Sites, which offers an opportunity to receive credit for landscaping features that will reduce water and resources required to maintain the lawn (e.g., drought tolerant plants and/or reduction in turf). If the project is using a landscape professional and has a particularly innovative (or holistic) approach to the landscape, the water-use calculator tool may be the most valuable way to receive points. This calculator is particularly beneficial to projects with landscapes that are designed to function without any added irrigation. Otherwise, these projects will not be able to receive points for any irrigation efficiencies in that category. This tool is helpful to recognize an approach such as xeriscaping.

The landscaper uses this tool by providing information on climate and square footage of the landscaped area. The tool determines a baseline water use based on the water load of a conventional lawn in the region. The landscaper then fills out the species type (e.g., native drought tolerant shrubs), the microclimate (e.g., partially sunny, exposed to wind), and other aspects that may influence water use (e.g., irrigation efficiencies, sensors, or controllers). Points are awarded based on a calculated overall water reduction (for example, a water use reduction of 40% awards 6 points). Project teams using a landscaper should take advantage of this innovative tool.