If the project includes both existing structure and new construction, the LEED project boundary must encompass the entire existing building regardless of the scope of work within the existing building.
A custom mercury content calculator will be denied by the LEED reviewer and should not be submitted as part of your LEED application. If a custom calculator or tool provided by a manufacturer was used during the performance period, all required data must be transferred to the built-in calculators in Table 1.1 and Table 1.2 of the LEED Submittal Template.
Mercury-containing lamps (or their high-efficiency counterparts) must be purchased during the performance period to qualify for this credit. In other words, if no lamps are purchased during the performance period, you will not be able to achieve the credit, even if you’ve developed a good purchasing plan.
If more than 10% of the building floor area is occupied by tenants who are unwilling or unable to share information about currently installed lamps, the project team is allowed to extrapolate existing data for the purchasing plan in order to complete a plan that covers at least 90% of the lamps in the building and associated grounds.
If you need to exclude 10% of the floor area in a multi-tenant building from your initial lamp inventory, you are still only required to cover 90% of the total number of inventoried lamps in your
Reducing the wattage of a lamp (for instance, going from a 32-watt T-8 fluorescent tube to a 28-watt T-8) will typically result in mercury reductions as well as improved energy efficiency. If it is economically feasible to retrofit a portion or all of the lamps and ballasts, those changes may make this credit more achievable.
