20% Cut Sheet Upload

Hi Denise - It is 20% of the sutstainable materials cost. So 20% of the cost contributing to your MRc4, or MRc5 tally. The LEED Materials Calculator spreadsheet calculates this for you under each credit section (at least the older version did). In the documentation provided column, if you select "yes" or "no" for each contributing material, the total % documented will be calculated at the bottom. Since the newer version of the spreadsheet does not ask about documentation, and neither does the v5 LEED Online Form, I'm not sure what you're supposed to do -- other than manually calculate the % of contributing materials cost that you are uploading. On a side note, that 20% is pretty arbitrary. I routinely have Reviewers ask me for additional supporting documentation about specific materials -- it does not seem to matter if I originally submit 20% or 90% of the documentation.

Check out the January and June 2016 updates on the LEEDuser forum - LEED Online Status Updates - http://www.leeduser.com/strategy/leed-online-status-updates. Among other things, those posts discuss the changes to the MR and IEQ documentation uploads that USGBC included as part of the January 2016 LEED Online Upgrade and v06 forms for LEED 2009 projects. These USGBC articles are additional references - http://www.usgbc.org/articles/new-forms-online-leed-2009-and-leed-v4-projects and http://www.usgbc.org/articles/leed-online-2016-updates.

Michelle - thanks for the link. That is helpful. One question -- do you know if the Reviewers are still asking for supporting documentation during review, even if the Forms do not require the uploads? Thanks!

Erica - My understanding is that the reviewers will only ask for backup if they have a question on items or something looks problematic in the MR Calculator. From a Proven Provider call, I learned that going forward MR backup that is uploaded is really not even reviewed by the reviewers.

Great - thanks Michelle. So, keep collecting the documentation just in case, but don't bother uploading with the new forms. Got it!

Erica - I just wanted to add something to your last comment. There's no way for the team's project manager for LEED to verify the information in the MR Calculator without the manufacturer documentation on the materials from the GC. So, it's not really the case of collecting it "just in case." In order for a full QC review to be done BEFORE the project is submitted to GBCI, the project manager for LEED needs the backup documentation. Then if there is a concern from the review team, the project manager for LEED has the backup readily available to provide. So, the only change in the process is that GBCI is no longer requiring the team to upload the 20% by cost of the backup documentation.

Yes, of course! Did not mean to diminish the importance of verification! As a LEED Admin, I spend a lot of time prepping documentation for upload with highlights, circles, flashing arrows if possible, and editing down the contractor's submittals to only the necessary pages. If I only need to spend time on this all prep work if asked for it during review could be a big time saver.

I'm in my leedonline nc v2009 cert project and the MRc4 form itself says: "provide cutsheets for 20% of materials by cost" and the line above that also says "with cutsheets provided." So naturally I'm confused by your comments above wheres my leedonline form seems to require uploading cutsheets. The bottom right of this form indicates v4. so my bigger question is why is the latest version of this form 06 as mentioned above not automatically showing up in my leedonlikne rather the version 04 form seems to be the default? Thank you! Debra

Debra - You have the pre-v06 form for your project (v04 in this case) - meaning your project was registered prior to 1/1/16. You must request an upgrade to the v06 forms within LEED Online via Feedback button. Only projects registered after 1/1/16 have the v06 forms automatically. You can try to request to upgrade to this one v06 form but I heard recently from another LEEDuser that USGBC is no longer doing single form upgrades and instead only upgrades the entire project. The problem is that many of us were used to the linkages that are in the pre-v06 forms, which is why the subject line of this post says beware of consequences. The v06 forms break all linkages and data sharing between credits because they can be worked on offline in addition to online. Please review my March 14, 2017 post in this thread (http://www.leeduser.com/comment/redirect/71068) that discusses the changes to the LEED Online that occurred with the v06 forms in the LEEDuser LEED Online Status Update forum.

Thank you very much Michelle! I will read the three webpages you linked. Your assistance is greatly appreciated. It's too bad that GBCI makes it so difficult for those trying to make LEED cost effective for the project Owners. It's never been easy for LEED users and seems to be more complicated than ever. I'm not working on any LEED v4 certification projects yet and am almost hesitant to even go there as much as I want to assist with sustainable design projects. GBCI needs to realize that when obtaining info for LEED and uploading/using LEEDonline gets complicated it add costs to projects that will likely prohibit projects from finishing or even starting LEED certification projects. It'd be interesting to find out from those that are working within LEEDonline how much of one's time (%) is actually spent on having to read through LI's, CIR's, LEED addenda, LEED webpages, and trying to figure out what to do when, etc. Cheers! Debra