This credit requires that the “Green Rater” (who is hired by the builder and visually verifies that everything is, indeed, built to LEED standards) inspect and verify each measure listed in the durability checklist. This is worth 3 whole points! Since the Green Rater already has to review many of our documents and perform tests, having him review the durability checklist as well seems like a no-brainer. From the standpoint of difficulty level, this may be the easiest 3 points we could get — especially since we had to create the durability checklist as a prerequisite.
Since this is the last piece in durability, I want to say another word about how important it is. As the LEED Reference Guide outlines, the principal durability risks are the following:
- exterior water (high risk for us, as we get major storms here and are near a lake)
- interior moisture loads (moderately high risk for us, as apparently our land sits on top of a river)
- air infiltration (low risk)
- interstitial condensation (what? I think this is water vapor flow; moderately high risk as our temperatures and humidity levels are extreme)
- heat loss (high risk – we live in Minnesota)
- ultraviolet radiation (low risk – but compared to what?)
- pests (low risk – ants, mosquitoes, rats all live here, but luckily we do not have termites to damage the house)
- natural disasters, such as hurricane winds, earthquakes, wildfires (overall low risk, but we do get tornadoes!)
These things should always be taken into consideration for any building projects. The key piece to sustainability is that it lasts. Building homes, furnishings, products, etc. in a shoddy way so that it falls apart is just irresponsible, to me.
Anyway, we finally got more points!
Innovation & Design Process points so far: 4
Cumulative points: 4
Additional points needed to get to Gold: 84