Can I add the total cost of furniture, and consider it as one item in the LEED form?
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NC-2009 MRc4: Recycled Content
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Furniture documentation
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FAQs about MRc4:
The recycled content percentage on the product data sheet is given as a range. What should I do?
Is the default average recycled content value of 25% for steel still allowed?
Can site materials, such as soil, be included in the MR credit calculations?
Are there recycled content claims that I should be wary of?
RETIRED
LEEDuser Expert
623 thumbs up
April 28, 2014 - 4:23 pm
Nouran - Typically you'll have different manufacturers and sustainable criteria for components and hence need to enter items on separate lines to utilize the BDC Material and Resource Calculator. But if you are not utilizing sustainable criteria for furniture, I guess you could put it all on one line but they why would you include it? As noted on the Instructions tab for the BDC Calculator, inclusion of furniture is optional.
Jon Clifford
LEED-AP BD+CGREENSQUARE
LEEDuser Expert
327 thumbs up
April 28, 2014 - 4:15 pm
Or...
If your furniture cannot qualify for MR credits, LEED permits you to omit all furniture from the calculation. However, if you omit furniture from one Credit, you must omit furniture from all Materials and Resources calculations.
Materials and Resources Credits 3 through 7 apply to “permanently installed materials”.
LEED gives you the choice whether to include furniture or not.
Nouran Abdel-Rahman
May 4, 2014 - 5:14 am
Thanks Michelle and Jonathan.
I want to add the furniture to MRc4. The only two materials used for furniture are wood and steel. For each material, the supplier provided the total cost and recycled content without the number of items. There are more than 30 types of furniture are used for the building, and it's so hard to define the recycled content and cost of each type. So can I put them in two lines, one for steel and the other for the wood, defining their recycled content and total cost; and consider each one of them as one item.
Jon Clifford
LEED-AP BD+CGREENSQUARE
LEEDuser Expert
327 thumbs up
May 5, 2014 - 12:10 pm
Nouran – Is furniture a major part of your construction budget?
MR Credits measure a product’s contribution in terms of cost. Therefore, we usually focus on the major budget items when accounting for MR Credits. Most “New Construction” projects spend the most money on the building’s structure and shell.
By comparison, the spending on furniture is usually only a small fraction of the budget. Therefore, even if our furniture’s recycled content were extraordinarily high, it could only raise our overall MRc4 percentage slightly. Moreover, like you, we have found that the recycled content data from some manufacturers is often incomplete or difficult to interpret.
For LEED-NC, we would typically only include furniture in MR Credit calculations if our furniture budget were exceptionally large, and then, only if furniture manufactures could provide complete data clearly showing that the furniture contributes significantly to the Credits we seek.
Remember, what counts favorably toward one Credit may count negatively against another credit. LEED gives you the choice whether to include furniture when calculating Materials & Resources credits, but you must treat it consistently across all Credits. Consider carefully whether including furniture brings you any real benefit.