Jan 01 2009
Can your house be LEED certified?
Most home owners probably aren’t familiar with LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). LEED is under the umbrella of the U.S Green Building Council, which is a non-profit organization committed to expanding sustainable building practices. LEED is a certification program and a nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings. As an architect, I’ve known about LEED since the beginning. To be LEED accredited is big now. Everyone wants to have their buildings be LEED certified. But it hasn’t really hit main stream residential projects yet. There are a few custom homes that are LEED certified. As the push for more sustainable design and construction becomes a standard instead of a wish list, LEED will more toward the forefront and become more main stream. As an architect, I like that. I want everyone to build to LEED standard. I want all buildings to be high performance green buildings. But I have to wonder, what will happen once everything is LEED? To be a Silver or Gold LEED certified building was a great accomplishment. Everyone in the construction and building industry looked in awe at the buildings that were LEED certified in the beginning because it was such a great accomplishment. Now the question is, can your house be LEED certified? The answer is YES. There is a LEED rating system for homes. It is to promote the design and construction of high performance green homes. Green homes are very big selling points in real estate now which is a plus in this down market. But unfortunately it’s only for new construction. If you are building a new house, LEED certification is the way to go at the very least to use as a check list of things you should look into during the design process. If you are remodeling, you can’t get LEED certification for your remodeling project, but it’s still a good idea to use that check list as a guide of things you could do to the house to help make it more “green”. I would encourage all home owners to look into the LEED rating system and see how you can make you house more of a high performance green home .
