One of the hardest things about doing something like getting a home LEED Certified is getting started. Back in 2008, we registered the project with the United States Green Building Council (USGBC), found a LEED for Homes Provider and a “Green Rater”, who would be responsible for verifying everything on our house. Our builder paid the registration fee, which was $150. At that time, there were no LEED for Homes Providers in Minnesota, so we had to sign up with an organization in Michigan. (Now, luckily, Building Knowledge Inc. became a local Twin Cities Provider, and they have been much more helpful.) Overall, that was pretty painless.
Then we built the home, paying some attention to the LEED requirements. Now my work begins. One problem: I have no deadline. I have asked our Provider and the USGBC several times about this, because it seems to me there ought to be some timeframe in which we need to get this done, once the project has been built. That does not seem to be the case.
So…like Julie in the movie Julie and Julia, I am giving myself a deadline. (Unlike Julie, I am not doing this as an experiment to write a blog and get attention. No indeed, my intention is to put into writing, from personal experience, how we are getting our home LEED certified, in the hopes of advancing sustainable home building. This will not become a movie.)
My plan is to write one entry for each sub-category. There are 35. Some are simple, some are complex. If I want to get this done before the end of the year, I will have to do more than one per week. Hmmm….yes. Two per week. Starting in June.