Page 291 - The Green Building Bottom Line The Real Cost of Sustainable Building
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THE FINE PRINT: LEGAL ISSUES IN GREEN BUILDING PROJECTS 269
Construction Contract Considerations
Listed below are LEED for New Construction prerequisites and points that
relate to the construction process rather than a project’s design. As it will be
either impossible or, in some cases, highly impractical to achieve these points
following the completion of construction, the construction contract and sched-
ule must contemplate them.
SS Prerequisite 1: Construction Activity Pollution Prevention
EA Prerequisite 1: Fundamental Commissioning of the Building Energy
Systems
EA Credit 3: Enhanced Commissioning
MR Credit 2.1: Construction Waste Management, Divert 50% from
Disposal
MR Credit 2.2: Construction Waste Management, Divert 75% from
Disposal
EQ Credit 3.1: Construction IAQ Management Plan: During Construction
EQ Credit 3.2: Construction IAQ Management Plan: Before Occupancy
Source: U.S. Green Building Council
PREVENTING PROBLEMS WITH BUILDING PERFORMANCE
Just because a building is green does not mean that it will otherwise perform well.
LEED and other certification systems are green rating systems, but they do not mea-
sure building performance in every area. The fact that a building is LEED certified
does not mean that it will be immune from problems.
In fact, incorporating green elements in a building’s design, if not done carefully,
may increase the risk of problems. Some have pointed out, for example, that LEED
rating systems are not tailored to different regions of the country; their requirements
are the same regardless of where a building is constructed, even though building ele-
ments that can achieve LEED points may work better in some places than others. In
areas with higher average humidity, for instance, such as the southeastern United
States, features like operable windows that increase ventilation may also increase the
risk of mold and mildew. Building flush-outs, which are done to clean the building’s
air following construction, move large volumes of outside air through a building and
may bring in more moisture than the building is designed to handle.
More broadly, green buildings are likely to incorporate new products and technolo-
gies, many of which have not been widely used. Most new products are experiments,
1
and as Stewart Brand warns in How Buildings Learn, “[m]ost experiments fail.” New
building products may not perform as well as advertised or may not interact well with