What Is an LEED-Certified Home?

LEED certification means Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, which is created by the US Green Building Council. This measures the construction practices used during a home structure. This provides buyers home that are environmentally friendly.

For your home to be LEED certified, its construction should embody eco-friendly practices, which include using recycled materials, minimizing or eliminating waste generated due to construction and using materials that do not emit harmful chemicals or substances to nature. The LEED home certification is a wonderful guide for homeowners who want to buy or renovate their present homes and make it more nature friendly. In order to be certified, your home will also be assessed by a third party and ensure that you get certification by adhering to eco-friendly standards.

The LEED certification promotes constructing or designing green homes. It uses eight various categories to measure a home's overall performance. Every category has a certain number of credits and each credit is worth 1 or more points. A home is presented a LEED certification rating based on the total points scored. The four certifications include LEED Certified for homes scoring from 45 to 50 points, LEED Silver for homes with scores 60 to 74 points; LEED Gold is for those homes with 75 to 89 points and LEED Platinum for homes scoring from 90 to 128 points. The builder may choose which credits to comply for a home to be certified.

Among the four categories, there are eight mandatory measures to be completed in each LEED-certified home. The eight categories and possible points are given below:

1. Innovation and Design Process - nine points are given for using unique regional credits, special design methods, measures not presently addressed in the Rating system and excellent performance levels.

2. Linkages and Location - ten points for placing homes in environmentally and socially responsible measures in relation to the bigger community.

3. Sustainable Sites - twenty-one points for using the whole property to minimize the project's effect on the site.

4. Water Efficiency - fifteen points for outdoor and indoor water conservation methods that are built into the home.

5. Energy and Atmosphere - thirty-eight points for improving energy efficiency, especially in the heating and cooling design.

6. Resources and Materials - fourteen points for choosing environmentally preferable materials, minimizing waste during building and using materials efficiently.

7. Indoor Environmental Quality - twenty points for improving the quality of indoor air by lowering possible pollution in the air.

8. Awareness and Education - three points for educating a homeowner, building manager and tenant regarding the maintenance and operations of the energy features of their homes.

The LEED is the sole national homes rating system that defines and establishes clearly benchmarks for a green home's feature. It allows builders around the county to get a green LEED rating recognized by homebuyers around the country. Builders using LEED can differentiate their homes as some of the best homes in the real estate market. Moreover, a LEED certification makes it easy for buyers to easily identify high quality eco-friendly homes.

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