, you have to meet the Tier I kitchen faucet 1.5 gpm requirement, plus install an Energy Star dishwasher that uses no more than 5.8 gallons per cycle. For outdoor water use, you have to reduce potable water use by at least 40% instead of 35%. Tier II Material Conservation requires that you reduce cement use by 25% instead of 20%, increase recycled material use by 15% by value, and reduce construction waste by at least 75% instead of Tier I’s 65%. For Environmental Quality, 90% of the resilient flooring must be low VOC, and insulation must comply with Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS) standards and have no added formaldehyde.
The Tier II electives are all the code provisions that remain after meeting all the mandatory items and the Tier I and Tier II prerequisites. In order to complete a Tier II certification, you need to include the number of electives shown in Table 4: Planning and Design (4), Energy Efficiency (6), Water Efficiency (2), Material Conservation (4), and Environmental Quality (2). If your project manages to do all these things, you should have a pretty darn green building.
Overall, CalGreen seems to be both relatively green and flexible. Code jurisdictions can craft programs to suit their local requirements, and builders have multiple ways to comply without running up too many heavy expenses. Interestingly, many of the CalGreen provisions are similar to LEED for Homes provisions but not as stringent. Both systems track compliance with a prescriptive checklist and performance-based energy efficiency thresholds. What’s missing, in the Energy Efficiency category for both systems, is a requirement to track a building’s energy use after occupancy. This is a fairly recent, and not unfair, criticism of the various LEED rating systems. There’s no point in building better buildings if the only proof we have of their quality is the output from a modeling program or items on a prescriptive checklist.
Some of the CalGreen documentation requirements may be difficult to meet, but most of the provisions with documentation requirements are elective. Many of them are also a bit vague, leaving the specific requirements up to local enforcement officials. Likewise, the enforcement and compliance guidelines are vague. It is pretty much left up to each jurisdiction to decide how it wants to enforce CalGreen. The regulations suggest that HERS raters or other special inspectors who are “qualified and able to demonstrate competency” may be used, but they’re not required. There are no HERS rater requirements, however, even for elective provisions such as duct testing, which can only be done by a HERS rater if the duct test is being used for Title 24 compliance credit. The overlap between CalGreen and HERS testing could be tightened up.
CalGreen states that HVAC installers should be properly trained and certified, but it doesn’t clearly and specifically define what that means. “Nationally or regionally recognized training or certification programs” are acceptable. In addition “uncertified persons may perform HVAC installations when under the direct supervision and responsibility of a person trained and certified to install HVAC systems or contractor licensed to install HVAC systems.” That leaves a certain amount of additional wiggle room in the HVAC certification requirement, guaranteeing that there will be no significant change.
Enforcement will probably be an issue for many months. It’s a well-known fact that enforcement of the current HERS regulations is spotty at best, and a downright failure much of the time. CalGreen just adds another layer of compliance that, based on the history of California’s HERS requirements, will be difficult to enforce. Code officials will have to be trained, and then jurisdictions will have to find the resources to enforce the code, if they are motivated to do so. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.
There will be additional confusion and complexity because the state is encouraging each jurisdiction to develop its own variation on the straightforward Tier I and Tier II