our building is really old (way older than me), contains ACM's, masonry walls with no insulation, construction of a by-gone era...... it seems unfair to compare it with EnergyStar (CBECS) database (those are predominantly modern era buildings). Plus, it has a combination of spaces unlike about any building I have ever seen. USGBC could argue that it is 50% office (by sf), but it only gets to 50% if all common spaces (closets, corridors, restrooms) are lumped into "offices". Who's to say those spaces serve only the offices in the building (in reality, those common spaces also serve the assembly, labs, other non-office spaces where people work in the building). We thought about the alternative approach of finding three "comparable" buildings, but we are not confident in what USGBC thinks "comparable" means - and we don't really think it's likely we could find anything comparable. The owner has made great strides in improving efficiency since about 2002; unfortunately, USGBC wants data no more than 6 years back (per the reference Guide). Changing envelope and major HVAC upgrades are really not feasible due to construction and (encapsulated) ACM's on airhandlers and ducts; so there is little more they can do to upgrade for energy efficiency that won't "break the bank".
We want to go for a CIR and ask exception to having to compare on Energy Star, ask exception to finding a comparable and, instead, be judged strictly on our own history of improvement since 2002 (gas and electric is all metered through local utility and all records are kept monthly). What do you all think our chances are? any advice?
When I do presentations on LEED and LEED GBOM for local trade orgs in Cinti, I often tell folks not to be discouraged if you have an old building - If I don't get "thumbs up" on this CIR, I may have to eat my words.
thank you
Tom Kennedy
Dan Ackerstein
PrincipalAckerstein Sustainability, LLC
LEEDuser Expert
819 thumbs up
October 27, 2010 - 12:12 pm
Having done some word-eating in my day around EAc1, I know where you are coming from. A couple of thoughts that may be helpful - My experience is that the USGBC/GBCI and Energy Star are very closely aligned on the issue of historic buildings. They generally conclude that the age of a building is not relevant to its energy efficiency rating. Obviously, age affects energy efficiency itself, but Energy Star (and by extension, LEED) are not designed to compare buildings adjusted for age - they just compare buildings based on space uses. So frankly I'm not optimistic for you on that point. On the space use issue, I think you've hit on a challenging aspect of Energy Star, which is allocating common spaces to various space uses in the building. And here I think you are right to take a common sense approach - if a given corridor serves only assembly spaces, it should be included in that space use. On the other hand, if it serves both assembly and office, you might use a square-foot weighted average to distribute the corridor SF between those two space types. Hope that helps a bit.
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5899 thumbs up
October 27, 2010 - 12:15 pm
Hi Tom,
Quite often the data does not back up your assumption that an old building uses more energy than an new one. In my experience just the opposite is true.
A significant improvement complinace path for this credit has been included in the draft of LEED 2012 which should be out for public comments soon. I am told that this method has also been proposed for inclusion in the pilot credits for LEED 2009 projects. So look for it there.
As usual with USGBC activities it is difficult to give you any timeframes however.
Jenny Carney
Vice PresidentWSP
LEEDuser Expert
657 thumbs up
October 28, 2010 - 10:33 am
I second Marcus's comments. In fact, a favorite past time is poking around the CBECS microdata, which shows pre-1950's buildings to be the most efficient age class in terms of EUI.
The space classification does sound like a challenge, but even if you can reassign the corridors, you still might not be eligible for Case 2, Option 2 (or Option C for v2008). This is the path that allows historic or comparables into the benchmarking. I would recommend sitting tight as Marcus suggests to see what changes are afoot...they may help you out quite a bit.
Michael Miller
Project Architect236 thumbs up
December 7, 2010 - 9:02 pm
Regarding the CBECS data and pre-1950's buildings: much of the CBECS EUI data is *site* EUI, not *source* (The dataset guidelines state that 'electricity' means 'site' unless noted otherwise.). Perhaps pre-1950's buildings use a higher average percentage of electricity for heating than newer buildings, thereby skewing the site EUI comparison.
(Energy Star, of course, converts to source EUI for determining the ES rating.)