Are VOC Budgets standard practice?

I cannot comment on all of your questions, but I do know one thing - VOC budgets are only intended to be used when there is no other alternative, when a compliant product is not available - I recently attempted the approach when a sealant was used on the site and missed in product review - I was told that the VOC budget was not to be used as a "save" when mistakes were made, as it has been in the past.

Have you looked into the Pallman Magic Oil 2K product that comes in neutral as well as colors that are like stains? We're using it on our LEED NC v2009 project. It's 5 g/l VOC's combined. LEED max. VOCs allowed = 350 g/l for clear wood finish and 250 g/l for stained finishes and 250 g/l for waterproofing sealer (non-masonry.)

I've used Bona products for athletic wood floors to be compliant with LEED v3 projects. You may want to check them out as well.

However, I'm VERY intererested in your side note. I wonder how common that practice is.

Edited for company name as it was clearly before coffee.

you asked: "Is it currently common practice on commercial LEED projects for GC's to run VOC budgets or that is still being avoided due to the paperwork and time involved?"

I work for a GC and I have said from the start I would not run a VOC budget calc. Our own firm and Subs were going to have to comply with VOC's for all products used on site. If I ever see something on site that doesn't comply it gets removed immediately. NOTE: Aerosol cans do not need to comply Except for aerosol adhesives. As far as stains go, maybe check out: https://www.vermontnaturalcoatings.com/product/stain-finish/ AND

https://greenlightcoatings.com/wood-coatings/waterborne/stains/

regards,

Debra

Hello Debra,

About the aerosol cans - I've seen that spray paints can be excluded from low-emitting credit in LEED 2009. I wonder if it's the same case in LEED v4. Can you please tell me if there's an official information that aerosol paint can be excluded from IEQc2 v4? Or did you have a project where you exluded it and achieved the credit? I worry about the VOC emission requirement.

Kind regards,

Kasia

I am learning v4 and not sure if None, All aerosol cans or if any some aerosol cans fall under v4 scope. I don't have the v4 Reference Guide yet so others will need to reply on v4. 

NOTE that for v2009 aerosol adhesives DO need to comply- it's only aerosol cans of product that is NOT adhesives that are excluded.

John-David, thank you for sharing your experience with submitting the budget method as a "save".  Could share what direction did the reviewer provide; remove the non-compliant sealant, seal over it with a compliant product, or some other path?

Thank you!

Jeff, I initially misread your message as saying a reviewer recommended that you can "seal" non-compliant materials.  I have never heard of that as an option.  With the new LEED v4 requirements we're tracking materials inside of walls so this seems counter-intuitive to me.  Additionally, many of these prior posts were from 2018, what we are currently seeing is that the industry is not where it needs to be to not budget.  Depending on the project we might be able to get a few categories at 100% but by and large, under v4/v4.1 guidelines we need to pursue budgeting.  I think LEED might've changed their position because EP is now granted under v4.1 if you achieve 90% on 3+ categories which implies budgeting is no longer a "save"

Edited/revised for context

Chyanne, thank you for sharing your insights.  I was initially responding to John-David's post from 2018 in an effort to understand what the outcome was for his project's reviewer's comments.  I read somewhere from another post that another architect rejected the non-compliant material and recommended its removal but in the case of a paint on structural steel substrate, would others advise their client to ask their GC to remove the non-complying coating by whatever means necessary (obviously not using a paint stripping product with high VOCs) which would have to be ground, or shot-blasted off?  What other options are there if a project cannot switch to the budget method?

Thank you to everyone.

Hi Jeff, My typical response is to switch to the budget method, it has been quite a bit of additional work though.  If your team is not prepared to take that on, then rejecting the material is an option.  If it has already been installed onsite however, stripping or otherwise removing the material seems more headache than it's worth.  I would pursue compliance by switching to other categories, for instance if this is a paint, I would drop that category and pursue walls, ceilings, insulation, and flooring for the categories to achieve 3 points in option v4.1.  Hope this helps.