I guess my question is; does the second review include review of changes made as a result of comments made during the second review? In other words; Design prelim; Comments made by reviewer; Changes made/comment responses; submitted. Construction prelim; Comments made by reviewer; Changes made/comment responses; submitted- is this last set of information reviewed as a function of the second review, or does that require an appeal to review the corrections made from the third review?

If a project has been submitted for review (Design prelim and Construction prelim) comments are received for each review. Upon returning comments from the second review, will the corrections made to a credit in response to comments from the Construction prelim review (EAp2) not be reviewed unless an appeal is made?

We have recently undergone the Final Design Stage Review and have some credits 'denied'. I was of the understanding that we could submit additional documentation to denied design stage credits and submit for review at Construction Stage Review. Afterall, the LEED manual states that the Design Stage Review is an optional stage to allow design teams to guage whether they are on track to achieve credits, NOT to actually award credits... (this is all done at Construction Stage). Is my understanding correct? Can I add additional documentation to design stage credits (denied) and resubmit at Construction Stage?

I am working on an indoor practice facility for a university Division 1 athletic program and am having a difficult time deciding how to enter FTEs and transients in a project information form. I need at least one FTE to apply for certification. My quandary is that the building has no permanent occupants (a couple of offices were deleted for budget reasons). It will be in constant use throughout the year, primarily by the football and track teams, with some use by the soccer and baseball teams. It is used on both a scheduled and nonscheduled, weather-related basis. Occupant loads will vary between 25 and 150 for team practices, and up to 25 for small group sessions.
Effectively, all of the users are "transients", but I can convert them to FTEs with a little math. My question is: should I convert them all to FTEs and say I have no transients? or should I just convert enough to have the equivalent of one FTE and treat the remainder as transient, with a peak of 150?

I am working on an underground building project aiming for LEED NC gold/platinum. Project design feasibility showed that 25% energy saving can be achieved with little effort as the HVAC design parameters were selected taking into account of sustainability and energy saving targets. Project considers district cooling plant chilled water as cooling source with no heating source in the design. District cooling is considered in the design to achieve the energy saving target as the project location pushed the client to not to go with water - cooled chillers due to limited water availability.

We opted for option 2; reasoning being the point cap when considering option 1 and our targeted point for EAC1.

Our project’s design parameters are quiet efficient in terms of envelope (don’t think it will affect the saving as the project building is almost 80% underground), efficient HVAC systems (ERU units with FCUs and with district chilled water system). Due to un-availability of DES details, we considered 4.4 as plant COP for proposed case as per the assumptions referenced in ‘Treatment of District or Campus Thermal Energy in LEED V2 and LEED 2009 – Design & Construction’. Baseline is done based on ASHRAE 90.1-2007 with System 8 and chiller of 6.1 COP. The results are not as expected showing a different pattern. I have some questions which are listed below.

1. Is there any way to model the proposed system to account for cost of the energy source i.e. to account for the impact of chilled water/energy cost alone?

2. Comparing a water cooled chiller with 6.1(COP) in Base with 4.4 plant COP for proposed doesn’t look fair. When we calculated the overall plant COP for Base case it comes around 5.5 a much higher COP than 4.4(proposed plant COP). But in actual cases, district chilled water plant is much more efficient than a standalone chiller. This questions the performance of the district chilled water systems and opting out from such options. Correct me if I am wrong.

3. In general, water cooled chillers are not a feasible option in very hot and humid condition. Projects will opt for air cooled chillers or district energy systems in these areas. A COP of 6.1 with water cooled centrifugal will prove both the options less efficient in terms of energy savings. Correct me if I am wrong.

4. I am modelling my project based on the document referenced above. Is there any other option or method which is accepted by USGBC to do simulation with district chilled water systems.

5. What are all the areas, I need to check in my energy model to make sure of the system and plant side parameters for this scenario?

I can understand my questions might take lot of your time. But you suggestions and comments will help me a lot.

Thanks a lot for your time.

Hello all,

We have a shopping center interested in certification with 10 buildings. Only 3 buildings will have restroom facilities for the retail customers that is meant to serve the entire project (and is approved as meeting code as such). We are not sure how to do the WEp1 calculation.

Our original thought is to do a water calculation according to the water use of the retail customers in each building even if the building does not have the restroom facilities. For example, Building A does not have restrooms, but we will still include a water reduction calculation base on the 114 transients using the restroom facilities in Building B. And Building B will only count the water usage of its transients and not the transients of any other building.

Is this an acceptable approach?

Thanks in advance.

Hello,
we are working on a new K12 school project with 4 separate buildings (2 bldgs for classrooms, 1 administration and 1 sports center). Can we apply for 1 single group certification (LEED for Schools) or this is not possible because the buildings are not similar? we would prefer avoiding registering 3 separate project within a campus, as this complicate the documentation and increase certification fees.
Thank you,

Looking through the requirements of LEED ND v4 I can only find reference to the OPR in one location - embedded within Appendix 4 as a requirement for GIB prerequisite Minimum Building Energy Performance - Option 2 Prescriptive Compliance. The OPR is usually developed by the Cx, but neither is there a requirement for a Cx as part of LEED ND. There doesn't appear to be much information around on this. Could you please clarify for me the requirement for an OPR as part of LEED ND?

This may be a very simple question, and perhaps our team is looking into this too deeply:

We have a campus which we intend to use a Master Site with individual registrations (i.e. not a group). If we want to pursue a credit on just one building, is that allowed? For example, we want one building and only the area of that building to get the Green Power and Renewable Energy Credit, but only that building. It may put it into a different certification tier. Does this pose any problems if we still use the Master Site to claim points for other credits?

In preliminary design review, we had attempted the Brownfields point, which is an option in SSc1.2.1, as well as 4 other points in that credit. The reviewer responded that we needed to show a remediation program for the whole building, not just the LEED TI project (about 17% of the building). At the time we could not provide that without an extraordinary effort, so we had no response.

The final comment was "Option 2 - Path 1: Brownfield Redevelopment: No additional information has been provided. The documentation does not demonstrate compliance.
One point is denied."

The other 4 points for the credit were awarded.

Now we find that we are unexpectedly close to Platinum, and the owner is considering creating a remediation program for the entire building, which would have to happen sooner or later (building owner is a government entity).

Were this an independent point we would have just withdrawn after the prelim and tried again in construction review, but with it being buried inside of SSc1, how would we proceed?

Is this even possible?

Thanks!