I have a question about whether painting and carpet replacement in a tenant suite, taking place on the weekends, counts as a facility alteration. The definition cited in the Reference Guide is: "Alterations that include construction activity by more than one trade specialty, make substantial changes to at least one entire room in the building, and require isolation of the work site from regular building occupants for the duration of construction are eligible."
In this case, more than one trade specialty is involved, changes are made to at least one room (but whether these are substantial is debatable), and the work is not occurring while occupants are present, but full isolation of the work site is not required, as it will be used during the workweek.
So it seems to me that this is not a qualifying facility alteration (aka no flush out is required). Do you agree?
Tristan Roberts
RepresentativeVermont House of Representatives
LEEDuser Expert
11477 thumbs up
May 11, 2010 - 4:04 pm
Seems like you could argue it either way. Is the suite being isolated from the rest of the physical building during construction? If so, it would seem to qualify as an alteration, even if you are not worried about isolating from occupants.But to that point, it's being isolated from occupants by way of doing the work on a weekend, so it does seem like you meet that criterion.
David Posada
Integrated Design & LEED SpecialistSERA Architects
LEEDuser Expert
1979 thumbs up
May 11, 2010 - 6:48 pm
I would agree that it could be argued both ways, but lean more toward it counting as a facility alteration. Since users could not occupy the space during the work, the isolation is being done by schedule rather than physical barrier, which is very common in commercial offices and schools.
Even if done after hours, this kind of work can have huge impacts on occupant health and comfort - thus we have IEQ credits for low emitting carpet and paint.
Seems like the intent of setting a criteria for significant alterations is to avoid tracking the minor ones with little impact on IEQ and track only the ones that do, which would seem to be the case here.