USGBC'S New Publication - LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenanc

January 24, 2008

Hi, folks!

I just returned from the ASHRAE Winter Meetings in New York, and the

AHR Expo. If you have not been to the AHR Expo, it is worth a trip!

There were over 32,000 people there, and over 1,800 exhibitors! Many

of the exhibitors were proclaiming that their products and services

were 'green', 'IEQ', or some variation. There were also many

exhibitors from China, Brazil, and other locations around the world.

I also attended the ASHRAE Environmental Health Committee (EHC)

meeting on Monday. The EHC is recommending to the ASHRAE BOD that

the next ASHRAE IEQ Conference be held in 'South East Asia', meaning

Singapore, in 2010. That should be quite interesting!

Finally, but probably of most interest to fellow HIF'ers: the USGBC

has revised the LEED for Existing Buildings (EB), in particular,

removing the reference in the EQ section to the USEPA Compendium of

Indoor Air Quality Sampling and Analytical Methods (1989) and the

table of indoor air contaminants. The revision has been posted on

their website in the last week (see below for download.)

In effect, the USGBC in the new section only calls for flushing the

building, and there is no alternative to conduct IEQ sampling.

According to the USGBC staff member I spoke to, the LEED for New

Construction still has these IEQ sampling requirements, and it is

likely to continue to do so for a while, until the next revision in

2009 or so. But there are no longer any IEQ sampling requirements in

the EB section. Quite a change!

USGBC was seeing that there were few existing buildings applying for

LEED accreditation, so there are a number of changes to the

prerequisites and credits to make it easier for an owner to apply for

this status. One of the major changes was the inclusion of green

cleaning products in the IEQ section.

If you are interested in this document, it is a free download at:

Don

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