Alternative Compliance Path from one project for another project

Can you describe your alternative compliance path approach? In my experience the LEED reviewers really follow the letter of the law outlined in the water use reduction additional guidance (version 8) document. You can find it on www.usgbc.org

The LEED review teams are contracted through the GBCI to do the reviews.

Your project probably wasn't reviewed by the same reviewer or company who approved your approach last time.

Just because your strategy was approved by one review team doesn't mean the next one will approve it, unfortunately.

It may be reasonable depending on the reasonableness of the alternative approach. Technically a previous review does not establish precedence. Suppose a reviewer mistakenly approved something that they should not have approved - if precedence were paramount then that mistake could never be corrected.

You can make reference to the fact that it was approved previously but that does not carry any weight and will not be taken into account in most cases.

A slight amendment to Kathryn's comment above regarding review teams. Some reviewers are contractors but the majority are GBCI employees. Her basic point about it being a different reviewer certainly holds true, especially when it comes to evaluating alternative compliance paths.

That's interesting, I didn't know a majority were GBCI employees? thanks for the clarification. I'm familiar with a few companies in my area that do LEED reviews but run into far fewer GBCI employees.