Forum discussion
NC-v4 EQc2: Low emitting materials
Hi all,
I'm confused about the expiration date of the emissions evaluation reports. Is it acceptable to submit emission reports valid as of the time of installation (which might expire by LEED review submission)? We have used plenty of materials in our project which now have valid certificates but most of which will be expired at the time of review submission, and we are not sure whether or when the manufacturers will renew the certificates.
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Tommy Linstroth
CEOGreen Badger
LEEDuser Expert
126 thumbs up
October 8, 2020 - 10:14 am
Zeynep,
From our experience, as long as the certificate was valid during some point of construction, it is accepted. They've even accepted them if they could have been valid during design, as that is when a product could have been specified. So as long as its during your time of construction, you should be good.
Zeynep Cakir
LEED AP BD+C, WELL AP, Sustainable Building ConsultantECOBUILD
13 thumbs up
October 9, 2020 - 3:42 am
This is good news Tommy. Thanks for sharing.
Peter Doo
PresidentDoo Consulting LLC
203 thumbs up
October 12, 2020 - 2:38 pm
I ran into this and had to dig a bit to resolve. A UL representative sent me this regading the product that had an expired date. In this case it was a matter of the template that was used for the certificate as the testing should be valid for 5 years unless the formulation changed.
I was able to look into this, and it appears that this report was completed with a report template we no longer use. At the time this 1 year expiration date was used to stringently follow along with CDPH v1.2 Section 8.8.
8.8 Retesting The manufacturer or certification/verification organization shall establish the schedule for routine laboratory retesting of samples appropriate to provide representative products. Often, the minimum frequency is dictated by building rating systems that award credits for using products with low VOC emissions. Biennial or even annual retesting often is required. The full retesting of samples may be less frequent if a certification/verification organization implements a robust routine quality control testing program and demonstrates its equivalency to full test for the purpose of substantiating manufacturers’claims. Detailed evidence of such equivalency shall be documented. The documentation shall be available to program participants, the public and any other interested parties. In addition, changes in formulation, manufacturing process, or supplier that can alter the VOC emissions characteristics of a product shall trigger additional retesting to maintain the validity of a claim based on the method.
In subsequent versions of our CDPH report template, we have removed the expiration date section of the summary page to avoid confusion. If it is helpful for your use, we can re-release this report under the new template format.
Peter Doo
PresidentDoo Consulting LLC
203 thumbs up
October 12, 2020 - 2:41 pm
You may want to email environment@ul.com regarding the specific product.
Zeynep Cakir
LEED AP BD+C, WELL AP, Sustainable Building ConsultantECOBUILD
13 thumbs up
October 13, 2020 - 4:41 am
Thank you Peter. This has been an enlightening piece of information. All materials that we use in our project have a certification period of 5 years. However most of them will be expired at the time of construction completion. Considering that LEED does not explicitly mention any retesting requirement (unless the formulation is changed) and the UL representative's statements on the removal of expiration date section on new templates, I believe using products with valid certificates at some point during construction should not be causing any problems, as Tommy mentioned above. Yet, I'll contact the UL Environment to see if they can re-release those reports under the new template format.