LEEDuser’s viewpoint
Explore this LEED credit
Post your questions on this credit in the forum, and click on the credit language tab to review to the LEED requirements.
Credit language
© Copyright U.S. Green Building Council, Inc. All rights reserved.
Requirements
Case 1. Single family
Install a whole-house water meter. Single-family attached homes may share a whole-building water meter if landscaping is commonly managed and any units that will not achieve LEED certification are separately metered. Encourage homeowners or tenants to share water usage data with USGBC via a USGBC-approved third-party. Homes that use only well water and are not connected to a municipal water system are exempt from this prerequisite.Case 2. Multifamily
Install a water meter or submeter for each unit or the entire building. Encourage homeowners or tenants to share water usage data with USGBC via a USGBC-approved third-party by describing the benefits of participation in the Homeowner Education Manual. See all forum discussions about this credit »What does it cost?
Cost estimates for this credit
On each BD+C v4 credit, LEEDuser offers the wisdom of a team of architects, engineers, cost estimators, and LEED experts with hundreds of LEED projects between then. They analyzed the sustainable design strategies associated with each LEED credit, but also to assign actual costs to those strategies.
Our tab contains overall cost guidance, notes on what “soft costs” to expect, and a strategy-by-strategy breakdown of what to consider and what it might cost, in percentage premiums, actual costs, or both.
This information is also available in a full PDF download in The Cost of LEED v4 report.
Learn more about The Cost of LEED v4 »Frequently asked questions
See all forum discussions about this credit »Addenda
Our LEED v4 Homes project is located in Canada. Our local water authority currently uses flat rate water billing, so billing is not based on water consumption. A whole-house water meter does not help meet the intent of Water Efficiency (WE) prerequisite Water Metering unless the homeowner is made aware of consumption habits and charged money for consumption. Installing a meter for compliance with the prerequisite would be a wasted cost; if our authority later changes policy and bills based on usage, the meter installed for our LEED certification will be replaced by a meter approved by the authority.
To encourage market transformation without wasted costs, we propose meeting the prerequisite in the following way: contact the local water authority in writing to formally request an approved water meter, and request billing based on water consumption.
The project is proposing an alternate approach to meet the intent of LEED v4 Homes Water Efficiency prerequisite Water Metering. LEED v4 single-family homes projects located in regions with only flat rate billing may comply with this prerequisite in the following way:
Contact the local water authority (or comparable utility / agency) in writing to formally request an approved water meter, and request billing based on water consumption instead of flat rate billing. The project team should use the letter template provided by USGBC to develop the written communication to the local water authority; the team may make minor adjustments to the template to better reflect local market conditions and environmental priorities.
If the agency is unwilling to provide an approved water meter, this LEED prerequisite is considered satisfied through the delivery of the notice. Project teams must confirm the response received from the local water authority in their LEED submission.
Project teams may consider installing automatic water shut off valves and leak detection systems to support effective water management and reduce consumption waste.
Documentation toolkit
The motherlode of cheat sheets
LEEDuser’s Documentation Toolkit is loaded with calculators to help assess credit compliance, tracking spreadsheets for materials, sample templates to help guide your narratives and LEED Online submissions, and examples of actual submissions from certified LEED projects for you to check your work against. To get your plaque, start with the right toolkit.
© Copyright U.S. Green Building Council, Inc. All rights reserved.
