Rating System

LEED BD+C: New Construction, LEED BD+C: New Construction, LEED BD+C: Schools, LEED BD+C: Schools, LEED ID+C: Commercial Interiors, LEED ID+C: Commercial Interiors, LEED BD+C: Core and Shell, LEED BD+C: Core and Shell

Rating System Version

v2 - LEED 2.2, v3 - LEED 2009, v2 - Schools 2007, v3 - LEED 2009, v2 - LEED 2.0, v3 - LEED 2009, v2 - LEED 2.0, v3 - LEED 2009

Inquiry

Our project is an office building with multiple stores where most of the occupied areas are open spaces. We intend to apply wood-based products in the technical floor (access floor). In accordance with LEED-NC V2.2, wood-based products inside the waterproofing system should not contain any urea-formaldehyde-based resins. This requirement is reasonably supported by the assumption that only the materials inside waterproofing system can have emissions for the interior environment. However if one material is applied inside the waterproofing system but is enclosed inside a waterproofing material, can this be considered out of the scope for this credit? The access floor squares will be made out of a wood particleboard core encapsulated inside an aluminum box and supported on metal supports, to allow the passage of all the cables and wires. This box will then be covered with the surfacing material. The function of the wood-based board is to give the necessary stiffness and bending strength to the whole assembly and, therefore, it will be totally enclosed inside this waterproofing box in order to avoid moisture penetration, what could interfere with the material performance. Therefore, we believe that this wood-based panel application guarantees that no eventual VOC emission can be allowed and, therefore, we\'d like to ask permission to apply this solution in the above mentioned project. In addition, please also note that this board is independently certified as E1 class, which is the class with the lowest level of formaldehyde emissions according with the European Standard EN 13986.