We're working on a LEED Volume prototype for our campus and received this feedback on MRc4: Only up to 10% of the floor area under separate control may be excluded from the calculations, so if residential spaces making up the majority of the building are excluded, this credit cannot be earned.
This is disappointing as we are great with purchasing low-mercury bulbs as a campus but have no real way to track the lamps that students are purchasing or using in personal lamps. I suppose we could do a sweep of all rooms to determine the types of bulbs used during the performance period, but have no way of tracking whether their personal purchases comply with our lamp purchasing plan.
I realize we are supposed to include all lamps, including "portable fixtures," but does anyone see a way around including the residents' personal lamps? Perhaps we could prove that they make up less than 10% of lamps in the building? Thanks
Jason Franken
Sustainability ProfessionalLEEDuser Expert
608 thumbs up
November 2, 2012 - 5:26 pm
Have you considered partnering with a big manufacturer like Philips or Sylvania to provide each student living in the dorms with one CFL at the start of each school year?
American University
SustainabilityAmerican University
56 thumbs up
November 2, 2012 - 5:44 pm
Hmm, that's a thought. I guess we could ask each person how many fixtures they have so we know the number of portable fixtures and the bulbs in them then. Do you think the review team would go for that?
Elizabeth Crenshaw Hammitt
Environmental CoordinatorEPB
75 thumbs up
November 12, 2012 - 4:15 pm
Emily,
This sounds like a really creative idea, and a great way to engage students…if you have the time within your project scope, you may want to send the question to GBCI - or if you feel the credit is worth it, submit a CIR to know for sure...if they accept the approach, you could include the GBCI response/ ruling in your application, and in theory this would protect against a reviewer's opinion to the contrary....Good luck!