Changing a Bid Project to LEED Certified

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Author Message Tomas Mejia, CCS, CCCA, LEED Senior Member Username: tmejia Post Number: 49 Registered: 09-2003 Posted on Friday, October 02, 2009 - 09:41 am:    Bids came in on a project at a little over half the budget. Project Architect e-mails me and says, "Since we are under budget, the client wants to make this project LEED certified. Post your word docs (80 spec sections)to the ftp so we can modify them". My reply was "Excuse me and No!" I then asked if he fully understood what his client was asking and if he had a LEED consultant. He said "Yes". So I recommended that he sit down with his LEED consultant and his project consultants and figure out where they are going to get their points. Once that was done, send me an RFP for Extra Services. The kicker - They wanted to have this done in 2 weeks! Your thoughts, comments, advice? William C. Pegues, FCSI, CCS Senior Member Username: wpegues Post Number: 797 Registered: 10-2002 Posted on Friday, October 02, 2009 - 10:05 am:    Tomas, Even as an 'internal' specifier for an architect, I totally agree. One, you should control your product, no idea how someone might modify them inappropriately. Two, we all know its a much more complex issue that involves not just sticking in various requirements but actually whether a specified product complies, and if someone goes changing those do they know they may need to change the other information in part 2, or performance, or installation. Three, 2 weeks is a funny joke -grin! I haven't had most LEED consultants complete their initial review in 2 weeks, unless they are just forwarding over an initial 'add spec' type generic listing. William C. Pegues, FCSI, CCS, SCIP Affiliate WDG Architecture, Washington, DC | Dallas, TX Lynn Javoroski CSI CCS LEEDŽ AP SCIP Affiliate Senior Member Username: lynn_javoroski Post Number: 932 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Friday, October 02, 2009 - 10:15 am:    I think we might have a new, expanded definition of "green washing" here, very similar to "white washing". Clearly, neither the client nor the Architect understand what it means to certify a LEED project. They are glossing over the entire process of product and material selection, to say nothing of the requirements that William touched on. No one else should modify your documents without your complete control. And 2 weeks?! (want an interrobang here) Hoo boy! That's knee-slapping funny! Nathan Woods, CCCA, LEED AP Senior Member Username: nwoods Post Number: 313 Registered: 08-2005 Posted on Friday, October 02, 2009 - 11:37 am:    Tomas, is this your first LEED certified project? If not, 2 weeks seems reasonable to me. I agree with retaining your origional editable files, but I really don't see what all the fuss is about with the schedule. It is not very difficult to accumulate the minimum 26 points. You should already know what products are locally sourced and contain recyclable content. You need to write a divsion 1 section, and update your products with regards to interior finishish, roofing, and probably HVAC, and definately regarding site related materials, but in my expereince, the effort involved on the specification end is not extensive. A better question you should pose to the Architect is if the MEP & site consultants have the same 2 week deadline, because their task may be far more involved, and will impact you. Mark Gilligan SE, CSI Senior Member Username: mark_gilligan Post Number: 218 Registered: 10-2007 Posted on Friday, October 02, 2009 - 12:19 pm:    Often when the prices come in that low it is an indication that a mistake was made or that games are being played. Will the Contractor be willing and able to spend the time to document the LEED points? Nathan Woods, CCCA, LEED AP Senior Member Username: nwoods Post Number: 314 Registered: 08-2005 Posted on Friday, October 02, 2009 - 12:30 pm:    Bids is plural, so they don't have a contractor yet, and if they reprogram the building to be LEED certified, they will doubtless rebid the project. I am not seeing 50% cost reductions, but definately 20% or more is occuring regularly (current bid results compared to 2008 cost estimates). If you have money, this is a great time to build! Wayne Yancey Senior Member Username: wayne_yancey Post Number: 265 Registered: 01-2008 Posted on Friday, October 02, 2009 - 12:36 pm:    Tomas, Mark and Nathan makes good points. The 50% reduction is a BIG red flag and rebidding the project with the LEED 2009 requirements is a fair and reasonable approach for the original bidders. I am curious, what was the spread in the bids? John Bunzick, CCS, CCCA, LEED AP Senior Member Username: bunzick Post Number: 1114 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Friday, October 02, 2009 - 01:37 pm:    Significant redesign will be necessary in all likelihood. It is not merely a matter of selecting materials with recycled content, FSC, etc. Building systems may need to be more energy efficient, insulation increased, plumbing fixtures changed, roofing system changed, storm water system redesigned, spaces made available for uses not currently programmed, glazing changed... yikes! While some credits may happen to be available in the existing design, it could be very difficult to get the entire design up to basic LEED requirements. There's no way you could even do the analysis in two weeks, not to mention the changes in design; what with energy and daylight modeling, etc. This is a fool's errand, I'd say. Chris Grimm, CSI, CCS, LEED-AP, MAI, RLA Senior Member Username: tsugaguy Post Number: 223 Registered: 06-2005 Posted on Friday, October 02, 2009 - 02:10 pm:    They need to take a good look at prerequisites 1st before deciding whether LEED is even possible at this point. For example how do they propose to meet EA prerequisite 1 fundamental commissioning within that timeframe? USGBC "prefers" for that to begin in DD. I guess with the word "prefers" in there that requirement is meaningless, but you can get the picture this may take longer than 2 weeks. They should also look carefully at EA prerequisite 2. The mechanical engineer should be weighing in on all this. We had LEED added to the scope of a current project recently, and negotiated extra fee and an extra month and a half. This is for a bid project where the Owner is very experienced with LEED, and we the architectural firm and all our consultants are as well. By the way I think you are now looking at a minimum of 40 points under LEED 2009 (or v3), as it appears the cutoff has passed for registering under 2.2 https://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=5176 Here is the public use/public display listing of the credits. You need the full reference guide to be sure you know what you are doing though. http://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=5546 Chris Grimm, CSI, CCS, LEED-AP, MAI, RLA Senior Member Username: tsugaguy Post Number: 224 Registered: 06-2005 Posted on Friday, October 02, 2009 - 02:17 pm:    If it is a public project, you might want to look at "Specifying LEED Under Public Bid Rules", Construction Specifier, July 2005 to see what they are in for, and some good ideas to consider that may improve the process. Slightly dated now but same principles apply. Lisa Goodwin Robbins, RA, CCS, LEED ap Senior Member Username: lgoodrob Post Number: 36 Registered: 08-2004 Posted on Friday, October 02, 2009 - 02:25 pm:    Tomas, Don't worry. The LEED consultant will never get their act together in 2 weeks. And just wait until the MEP/FP engineers find out. There is significant work in their areas and running new energy models. The Owner won't be able to answer the new questions they will be asked. Specifications are probably the easiest thing to change at this stage. J. Peter Jordan Senior Member Username: jpjordan Post Number: 361 Registered: 05-2004 Posted on Friday, October 02, 2009 - 06:56 pm:    One of the primary advantages that I see for LEED projects is the level of collegiality that is required between the Owner, the design consultants, and the Contractor (once one has been selected). It is the kind of collaboration we all talk about as a good thing, but which never seems to happen on most project. It is a process very suitable for CM-At-Risk, but can be accomplished on design-bid-build projects as well. By choosing to "go green" at this point, the Owner has If the project has already gone through a "greening" process, especially with the design and selection of efficient MEP systems, then significant redesign should not be required for basic certification. IMHO, we should be designing our buildings to that level anyway (this does not always work in every case). I should note that this was true with previous LEED certification programs. Under LEED 3.0 this may be more difficult. There are, however, prerequisites that must be met, and some of them will required additional time by other consultants (especially MEP). I would agree that getting the job of greening the specs in 2 weeks is doable, but this does depend largely on how you and your client select and specify the project. If the LEED consultant can drop everything right away, they may be able to complete a review in a week. It will probably take another week for the Owner to determine how aggressive they want to be (basic certification? Silver? Gold? Platinum?). Anything beyond Silver will almost certainly required MEP redesign and detailed energy analysis. At that point, a realistic schedule can be established (MEP may need six to eight weeks to do an ASHRAE 90.1 analysis and any necessary redesign. Generally, depending on location of project, recycled and regional materials are doable or not doable and it is a simple matter of inserting appropriate requirements for submittals and products (think easy stuff like cement, CMU, steel--both structural and non-structural items, and gypsum wall board). Low-emitting materials are a bit trickier; your paint sections may need major rework. You may want to select a new roof. The specification part is the easy part (easily done in a few days), getting decisions on just what changes need to be made will be much more difficult. All in all, it is highly likely that the entire process will take a minimum of 8 to 10 weeks, and most likely, it will take at least half again as long. Depending on how you work with the team, the specifier's portion of that time may be minimal (a few days) or, if the specifier is actively participating on the design team researching and selecting products, it may take several weeks. If the project is located where there is a rigorous energy code in place, then some of this may not be necessary. You may have to insert requirements related to products you are already using. Can't help but wonder, as other are, about the spread of bids. We are seeing very agressive pricing in the Houston area as people are trying to shore up any backlog for 2010 and 2011 (existing backlogs for those periods has virtually dried up), but 50% under seems extreme. Tomas Mejia, CCS, CCCA, LEED Senior Member Username: tmejia Post Number: 50 Registered: 09-2003 Posted on Friday, October 02, 2009 - 09:44 pm:    Thanks for the replies. I haven't heard back yet so I guess the 2 week window is out the door. The project architect did not give me the bid numbers just that they were a little over half the budget. So 60 - 70% maybe? Design of this project, a 2 and 4 story L shaped building of 132,00 sq. ft., started in 2006. This isn't my first LEED project, but it isn't something I do regularly. As for 2 weeks, I laughed and told the Architect if I had all the design answers and nothing else to work on in my office, my spec portion could be done. You all know the chance of that happening. MEP and commissioning were a couple of the items I asked the architect to look deeper into. I'll see what happens next week. Right now I have other projects to work on. Tomas Mejia, CCS, CCCA, LEED Senior Member Username: tmejia Post Number: 51 Registered: 09-2003 Posted on Monday, October 05, 2009 - 08:22 am:    Chris, Thanks for the links and Specifier article. I will forward this information to the Project Architect.