LEED AP Homes study guide
LEED AP Homes · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The LEED AP Homes credential is one of the LEED AP with specialty designations listed under Professional credentials on usgbc.org, alongside LEED Green Associate, LEED Green Rater and LEED Fellow. It is aimed at professionals who work on residential projects - architects, builders, raters, consultants and sustainability coordinators - and who need to apply the Homes rating system in practice rather than only understand LEED concepts generally. The LEED AP Homes study guide has 4 sections and about 1,452 words.
01LEED Homes Rating System Fundamentals
LEED v4 for Homes is a residential rating system: it certifies single-family houses and multifamily buildings up to three stories, while four-to-eight-story multifamily follows the Multifamily Midrise path; LEED v4.1 Residential merges both into one residential system. The exam tests how a home actually earns certification - prerequisites, point math, third-party verification - not commercial BD+C rules.
349 words, about 2 min02Site and Location Strategies for Residential Projects
Location and site credits score the home's address and how the lot is treated during and after construction. Most of these points are map-and-measure facts, so the exam tests thresholds and the difference between a poor site and a well-designed one.
385 words, about 2 min03Water Efficiency and Energy Performance in Homes
Water and energy carry 50 of the 110 points - 12 and 38 - and both are performance-based. The exam asks you to compute a saving or read a rating, not to name a fixture.
369 words, about 2 min04Materials, Indoor Environmental Quality, and the Certification Process
Prerequisites: certified tropical wood (FSC or equivalent, or none used) and a durability management process, with water-management details documented and verified on site. Credits: material-efficient framing and framing-waste optimization; construction waste management with debris diversion; environmentally preferable products such as FSC wood, recycled content, bio-based materials, and local sourcing.
349 words, about 2 min