Learning from LEED, and Ready for More. Boston Area Green Remodeling and Design Firm's unique story

March 1, 2011 - PRLog -- For the Full Story with pictures go to: http://www.daily5remodel.com/index.php?action=article&rowid=507

Ideal Test Case
In January of 2010, SCSI signed a contract to help a client achieve her retirement dream of moving back to the home where she had raised her children. The main house, a farmhouse estimated to have been built in the mid-1800s, was in move-in condition. The carriage house next to it, which the client wanted to serve as a guest and/or caretaker unit, was dilapidated and needed to be completely rebuilt.

Though the company had never sought LEED certification before, the carriage house seemed an ideal test case. For one thing, the client’s priorities included conservation, energy efficiency and local materials, along with maintaining the building’s historic properties. For another, Daniel (who has a master’s degree in environmental sciences and is a NARI Green Certified Professional), founded the company in 2001 with a green focus. All of their projects involve green methods and materials, and  “we knew that we would build [the carriage house] to LEED standards anyway,” he told us in an interview Friday.

They suggested the LEED certification to the client after the contract was signed. She was somewhat familiar with the LEED concept and agreed. Since the contract had been signed, the company simply decided to absorb any additional costs associated with the certification, chalking it up to a learning experience.

Bringing on the Trades
The goal of LEED certification dominated the project from its earliest planning meetings. “We started with a big brainstorming meeting involving all the parties,” Glickman explained: LEED verifier, heating and air-conditioning contractors, plumbing and electrical contractors, engineer, client and the Glickmans (Amelia is the architectural designer at the four-person firm).

The carriage house was big enough to accommodate a laundry room, foyer and covered garage on the first floor, and a bedroom, bathroom, living room and eat-in kitchen on the second. But its condition -- rotted wood throughout, a large hole in the roof, small trees growing out of soil-filled gutters -- necessitated a wholesale rebuilding effort.


From that very first meeting, “the conversation about the project began to change,” he said. “The entire team walked around the existing building, studied the plans, and began to discuss things that often don’t come up until much later, such as ‘how can we run these ducts through the ceiling without hitting the beam, or avoiding running ducts through the garage space?' Rather than hitting those roadblocks down the road, we hit them early.”

That collaborative process turned out to be an unexpected benefit of the LEED certification. Rather than pushback from SCSI's trade partners, “They loved being brought in early and being part of the design team," Glickman said. "They loved having some ownership of setting and achieving the goals, and not just setting the pipes or the wires.”

That paid off in at least two ways. The project’s trade partners “helped us figure things out and did quite a bit of research.” From the marketing perspective, these companies also talked up the project within their own circles, boosting SCSI’s referral base, and have agreed to share advertising costs with SCSI on future promotions touting their jointly achieved LEED certification.
The Good, the Bad and the Bureaucratic
Less appealing was the paperwork-intensive process of LEED certification, said Glickman. “It’s a lot of bureaucratic work. Even if you’re used to building green and doing quality construction, the project-management side of this is dramatically more challenging than what most contractors are used to,” especially small remodeling contractors.

For instance, LEED is a points-based system focused on five categories defined by USGBC as: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality. 

“You’re focused on a path that combines all of these,” he explained. “You don’t have to go gung-ho on one category in particular,” and the process allows some leeway to reflect the company’s strengths and the homeowners’ directives.

“Because it’s a points-based system, you’re constantly calculating how many points you’ll get for this decision” -- such as using recycled or locally sourced materials. Likewise is the constant calculation of how many points you might trade off for making that decision -- such as using imported materials.

In the case of the carriage house, energy efficiency took center stage, partly because the client requested it and partly because “we know it very well and have better control of it” than the other categories, Glickman said. Plus, “we managed to get a bunch of miscellaneous points by investing more in matters such as drainage issues and watershed management.”

Adding to the bureaucratic burden, getting those points requires documented proof that is not always easy to get. “We know that a lot of products have recycled content, like certain roofing shingles and drywall,” he noted. But unless their manufacturers have registered with the LEED program, or unless they provide documentation showing exactly how much recycled content they have, “you don’t get the points.” 

That played out in decisions such as opting for local drywall, which can easily be proven, instead of recycled (but undocumented) drywall that had to be trucked in from elsewhere.
Not everything worked according to plan, either. Under the LEED model, careful foresight goes into ordering to minimize waste and dump runs, and the entire carriage house project required only one and a half Dumpsters, Glickman said. Where possible, unused materials were recycled, and that was the idea with drywall scraps. “We said, ‘That sounds great.’ We don’t pay for Dumpster space, and the scraps get recycled, fantastic.” Placed outside, however, the scraps got wet, squelching the plan and sacrificing points.
Costs and Takeaways
Asked to calculate the total additional costs of LEED certification, Glickman identified direct costs of about $4,600 -- $225 to register with USGBC and $300 for the certification, with the bulk of the rest going to the LEED verifier, who visited the project two times, including the final inspection in November.

(At the client’s request, Glickman declined to cite the total project cost, noting only that it was under $500,000.)

Additional meeting and planning costs are difficult to calculate, but Glickman estimated that the effort combined added 5 to 10 percent to the gross amount of time the project required. On the other hand, because LEED projects are EnergyStar-quality by definition, the project yielded EnergyStar rebates of around $1,200.

The big payoff, he hopes, is yet to come -- for the client, in terms of having a well-constructed and energy-efficient place for guests, and for SCSI. 

“Having a LEED-certified project isn’t for everybody, but it shows that you’re on top the new building technologies in this changing world. It shows that you have accountability and you care about your work a lot,” Glickman said.
Time will tell whether the effort will pay off in terms of more LEED projects going forward, but he is optimistic. “We’ll get this story out through the media, on our Facebook page, through our community,” as well as through a cooperative advertising program with the company’s trade partners.

In any case, “it's a good program that helps to determine how you should focus your efforts. And our next LEED project," he ventured to say, "will be a piece of cake.”

For more information contact:
Daniel Glickman
dan@scsiboston.com  508.653.7282
www.scsiboston.com
 

 

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Sustainable Construction Services, Inc. (SCSI) is a Green Building and Design Specialist. Servicing Boston's Metro-west and Eastern Mass, SCSI provides design, Architecture, Green Building, Maintenance and repair services.