Guys, I have this problem, we have buildings that were recently retrofitted to T8 bulbs but also have several pin based CFL fixtures in our buildings, we are in our second performance period now and since we retrofitted not too long ago we do not purchase many T8 lights since we don't need to, but we are buying a few pin based CFL's (those go out quite more often and although we switched to the lowest pg/lumen hr. available in the market, they are still at 91pg/lm hr.). Our total pg/lm hr is still well below 90 in average, but our purchases do not account for 90% of lights under 90pg/lm hr. during this period. Do this means that I have to replace the pin based fixtures to achieve this credit?
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Jason Franken
Sustainability ProfessionalLEEDuser Expert
608 thumbs up
September 25, 2012 - 10:56 am
I think you're going to be o.k. There are two requirements for this credit:
1) you must have a purchasing plan that addresses at least 90% of the lamps in the building AND has a weighted average mercury content of 90 pg/lm-hr or lower
2) you must purchase some lamps during your performance period
Technically if you bought one box of T8 lamps during your performance period (or a few pin-based CFLs), this would be enough to meet the purchasing requirement, as long as the lamps you buy are included in your purchasing plan.
So, to be clear, you don't have to buy enough different types of lamps to account for 90% of the lamps in your purchasing plan. You just need to buy any lamps that are included in your purchasing plan. Make sense?
Julio Sanchez
Building EngineerHines
September 25, 2012 - 11:15 am
Thanks for the quick response, I might be wrong but here's the way we are looking at this requirement. This is an example:
During this performance period we bought 100 T8 lamps with a total of 29 pg/lm hr. and we bought 20 pin based CFL's with a total of 100 pg/lm hr.
When we record this in our performance period purchases table, the overall pg/lm hr for our total purchases is below 70 pg/lm hr. but, from the total lights purchased (120) 17% (20 CFL's) were not in compliance with the minimum of 90 pg/lm hr. (90%) for each lamp.
We are assuming this based on the following requirement:
"The plan must require that at least 90% of purchased lamps comply with the target (as measured by the number of lamps).
Please let me know if our assumption is not accurate.
Jason Franken
Sustainability ProfessionalLEEDuser Expert
608 thumbs up
September 25, 2012 - 11:29 am
You're mixing up the specifics of the two different requirements.
Yes, it is true that the Purchasing Plan must address at least 90% of the lamps. This is the information that gets entered into Table MRc4-1 in the Credit Form.
However, the list of purchased lamps that gets entered into Table MRc4-2 has a different set of criteria. You need to ensure that:
1) at least 1 lamp is purchased during the performance period,
2) that the weighted average mercury content is less than 90 pg/lm-hr, and
3) that the purchased lamp(s) are listed in the aforementioned Purchasing Plan
That's it. It doesn't matter how many lamps or lamp types are entered into Table MRc4-2, as long as those three criteria are met. Hope this helps.
Julio Sanchez
Building EngineerHines
September 25, 2012 - 11:43 am
Right on the spot, thanks for the clarification, that just saved us a lot of work.