Paperwork in

Here's a shot of the kitchen (with temporary stove as Chambers is still being converted and it's too dang cold in the barn to work on it). As you can see, we finally painted it.
The big news is that we finally filed the paperwork for our LEED silver, and now are awaiting news about whether we owe anything more in terms of paperwork or whether we are now just waiting.

One house, certifiable.

Well, Will D'Arrigo came and spent the morning, did the blower test, pressurized the house, tested the air flow in the fans, went through the check list, told me what further papers I need, and made it official — we will be a silver certified LEED home. We are actually close to gold, but with the points cushion, we have room to lose a couple if the USGBC takes issue with any of our points. In any event, we're good for Silver, thanks to all of everyone's hard work. Here's the house right now, with one room nearly painted...

Team meeting

Many thanks to our friends at Burke Mtn. in Vermont; our weekend was memorable. Special thanks to Kirsten, Beverly and Paul for giving me the chance to go to a meeting of the Mid-Burke Philosophical Society. Fascinating.

Above see Lloyd and Doug Paddock during their morning discussion—or, as I should say, one of their morning discussions. A big thing with LEED certification is communication, and that means frequent, short chats involving all the various subs to make sure we are giving people what they need to succeed.

The Paddock crew is working so fast we may be able to get all the windows installed this week, and Rick Copeland's team is roofing. Right now, Doug's team is framing the west porch (see Red on the wall) which is being married to the SIPs, extending over the bulkhead entrance to the cellar. This will be the entrance to our mudroom, which we need with kids and dogs.

Thermal envelope

LEED rater Will came up today to take a look at the thermal envelope. We're on track and his next inspection will be ductwork.

Size matters

One of the things that impacts your points to achieve for a LEED rating is the size of your house. If you build a larger house, you have a higher number of points to achieve to meet the rating. With a smaller house, your point threshold is smaller. We were penalized 3 points for building a house of some 2900 square feet as a 4 bedroom; the neutral level being 2600 per LEED. If you build smaller than that, you are credited points.

Anyone who has built can tell you that the size of your new home fluctuates in perception throughout the process. When we just had a foundation, it looked tiny. Right now, from the exterior, it looks frankly enormous. Part of this is the fact that it's still standing high on the foundation; the ground level will come up after we put in the septic field. Go inside, and it shrinks again (the blue board darkens things and makes it seem smaller). Put in a wall, though, and suddenly it grows again. And when the plaster whitens the walls, once again it grows. It's one of the tricky things about designing a house, to know how big of a house you actually have.

Our house is a 30x40 foot two story section, with an 18x24 foot one story ell. True, we won't have a 30' living room with separate den, or a bedroom suite that measures 18' or larger, but in our view it is 'way more than enough for our family and guests, Erin's office, a laundry room and mudroom, which were on our "must have" list.

LEED update

Bottom line: If anyone tells you LEED is impossibly difficult and you should pay them lots of money to help, they lie. If they tell you it takes some care and planning but you can do it yourself, they tell the truth.

Conservation Services Group paid us a house call today (more like an apartment call), and we had a meeting about our checklists, durability issues, and target levels. CSG agrees we should shoot for a Silver rating, with an estimated point level of 70. Our checklist calls for some special planning, but most of the items are covered by careful ductwork and SIP design. the geothermal heat system helps. We will have to build a good quality fireplace (would have, anyway). We will need to provide ventilation for the house (had to, anyway). And we will need to measure some things, like amounts of waste on the project (with SIPs, minimal). But here you go: If you build with SIPs, chances are you can get certified. With a little effort, you can get silver. If you stretch for every point, you can reach gold. And if you're rolling in dough and can afford all those special things like salvage flooring and beamwork, you could probably reach platinum.

LEED and the process

In case you didn't figure this out from yesterday's rant, Flip and I have filed the final plans with the LEED rater (Conservation Services Group of Westborough, MA). Although we had planned to do this much earlier, the plans kept getting tweaked until now so they weren't "done." We filed with the HERS rater for an Energy Star rating a couple of weeks ago, and the preliminary report shows an as planned HERS rating of 53, a good 11 points under the high benchmark (this is a good thing). Moving though LEED, therefore, should be somewhat easier with ES under our belt.

For LEED neophytes, first thing to do is Get The Book. USGBC will send it to you (for a scant $125 or so), and if you have insomnia, it's a great solution. However, if you read it carefully, and plan for the items during design phase it will not be terribly hairy. It's easier for us as we are building with SIPs as it eliminates an inspection step. Planning should be done during site work. In New England, for instance, we need a radon abatement system preinstalled (which is good to do anyway in case you find you have radon later) during your foundation design.

If you have a LEED-anal-retentive on your team, please note that none of these agencies likes a nice, old fashioned fireplace. However, you can work around it by installing doors over the hearth, something I've never liked but will have to suck it up. Also, you do not have to do EVERYTHING in the book. Just the "mandatory" items and as many of the others as you can.

After months of reading and research, few changes had to be made to our design. Our target level is "silver," which is second out of four stages of LEED certification. With proper landscaping, we should easily reach that with current projected points at 71. More info will follow as we get further into the process.

Okay, here's the rant

Why does it make sense that we have to pay to get our "green" rating? What incentive is that for people to build right? I agree that the oversight group needs to get paid, but doesn't our country want people to build green? You'd think we'd get some tax credit or something for this, but no. We get a big zip. And, we get to pay extra for the privilege of building right, and not chump change, either. OK, I'm done now.

We're in the middle of a sleet and freezing rain weather pattern, so things are at a standstill. More tomorrow when I stop being mad at my country's stupid environmental management.