Brian, thanks for your question.

You’re asking lots of common questions at the beginning stages of a LEED project. Ideally the way to answer these would be to sit down with the whole project team (owner, architect, engineers and LEED consultant if applicable) to determine what the goals for the project are. Are your goals to simply earn LEED certification in the most cost-effective means? Would you like to showcase energy efficiency more than any other category? And if so, how much better than an ‘average’ building would you like to be performing? Alternatively, how much better than the current code minimums are you willing to pay a premium cost for?

The way I’m reading your question you’re asking several different things:

* What are some ideas for items that will help the building be energy efficient (and their costs)?
* What items that impact the Energy & Atmosphere category are the most cost effective?
* What items that impact the Water Efficiency category are the most cost effective?

Having a LEED charrette with the project team early on will help determine the answers to these questions that will work with your budgetary means.

A geothermal heat pump system is a great energy saver, though a high cost item. But with current government stimulus money and tax rebates, it might become a viable option. However, every project isn’t ideal for geothermal. Maybe a variable refrigerant volume HVAC system, or high efficiency frictionless chillers… On the lighting side, T-5 HO might be the way to go, but would depend on your building application or office space layout. Building utility sub-metering and advanced BAS controls might be recommended, but only if the occupant has or is willing to hire the staff knowledgeable to access and analyze the feedback information from those monitoring systems.

Typically people are always interested in renewable energy for sustainable design projects as well. Solar and wind systems rarely pay back in a simple payback scenario, depending on location, but again with grants and tax credits may become more desirable in terms of payback.

Another item that is a necessity for LEED projects are water-efficient plumbing fixtures. Depending on your location, this may or may not be a payback item, but here in the Midwest, water efficiency is rarely implemented for monetary reasons. Still, if you have a office building, for example, I’ve found that low-flow water closets (1.28 gpf) and urinals (0.5 gpf) are the ideal combination for water efficiency that still remain budget (and maintenance) friendly. If you want to maximize your WE credits, you’ll have to look into lower flows or waterless urinals, since the new baseline public lavatory faucet requirement has been lowered to 0.5 gpm. Water efficiency credits are no longer low-hanging fruit.

So I guess what I’m getting at is that without knowing too much about your project, it’s hard to recommend specific strategies, since each building project, owner and occupant is different. But one item I can recommend no matter what your project is to invest in a good building envelope. This will make all the difference in terms of energy performance because the envelope has a huge impact on the cooling and heating loads of the building. This is especially true of glazing and framing, where a good NFRC-rated assembly will help not only save energy but maximize EAc1 points.

Ultimately the item that will result in the most cost-effective, energy efficient project is integration of the design team from the preliminary design stages (even budgeting in some instances). You can read much more about LEED project case studies where some other specific technologies are mentioned at http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=1721.