WELL Building Time Commitment?

Hi Ashley, Not speaking as the WELL administrator, but just the design team support WELL documentation I would say it’s the same. The difference is w/ LEED you spend time documenting several credits on a typical project, sort of equally, but on our WELL project it seems that all of our time is focused on the Materials Features. I am experiencing that material submittal review is a lot more complicated and time consuming if your contractor submits substitutions . We first did research and spent time making sure our specifications complied w/ the materials features, then seem to be spending the same amount of time reviewing submittals as things like paint brand are changed. It is also as if it’s the early days of LEED, it’s all new language for the subs, and contractors if they don’t have any experience w/ WELL, and it’s required a lot of coordination. We created some tools to help us track the materials and compliance, but it has still been challenging. But outside of the materials features, it has been very light, pretty straightforward. Kristen Kristen Fritsch AIA LEED AP BD+C WELL AP Sustainability Coordinator ELKUS MANFREDI ARCHITECTS [tel] 617.695.7954 [email] kfritsch@elkus-manfredi.com WFH# 206-356-5296 From: Ash

I see the WELL Admin and the discipline side of a few projects. From the individual discipline standpoint, I pretty much agree with Kristen. It's WAY simpler when you're producing the documentation versus running the effort. As the Admin, I feel like the time needed is much higher. That said, it will vary greatly depending on your team and client. For my projects, we were all starting from scratch, and there was much research, discussion, and education for everyone, but especially for the client. We had no examples to start with like we usually do with LEED, and WELL doesn't provide much of anything to go on. I have spent a surprising amount of time trying to work through the balance of points versus policy development, especially. The desire and cooperation is there, it's just a lot of discussion. Ultimately, the client has to go write their own content. If you are lucky enough to get a client that has already gone through a WELL project, I anticipate that aspect would be much less painful. Another variant could be if the project is also pursuing LEED, as there is a fair amount of overlap. Note, though, that much of the overlap doesn't perfectly align, so there's some careful navigation needed, especially with the materials like Kristen noted.