ATLANTA, GA — The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) is continuing to promote the widespread use of its energy standard.

ANSI/ASHRAE/IESNA 90.1-2001, Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings, provides the minimum requirements for the design of energy-efficient buildings.

“ASHRAE’s policy is to work on a nonexclusive basis with all recognized code organizations to have ASHRAE standards used as widely as possible,” said Bruce Hunn, ASHRAE’s director of technology.

Standard 90.1-2001 is expected to be referenced in the 2003 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC). At the April 2002 code change hearings of the International Code Council (ICC), ASHRAE’s proposal that the IECC update its reference from Standard 90.1-1999 to the 2001 standard was approved by the IECC Code Development Committee. Final action on this proposed change will take place at ICC this fall.

The IECC is a model code that may be adopted by code jurisdictions either in the United States or internationally.

ASHRAE also has asked that wording in the “Design by Acceptable Practice For Commercial Buildings” chapter of the IECC be consistent with the 2001 standard.

In addition, the society is working with other organizations to encourage and facilitate the adoption of the standard into model energy codes.

ASHRAE recently signed a partnering agreement with the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) to incorporate 90.1 in the NFPA consensus code set. Along with ASHRAE Standard 90.2-2001, Energy-Efficient Design of Low-Rise Residential Buildings, these standards will comprise the energy code portion of the NFPA code set.

ASHRAE said it will work with NFPA to develop procedures for handling interpretation requests and for the incorporation of Standard 90.1 and 90.2 updates into the code set. Further development of these standards will continue under ASHRAE/IESNA continuous maintenance procedures, through the committees overseeing Standards 90.1 and 90.2.

The DOE currently is evaluating whether to adopt Standard 90.1-1999 as the reference for state energy code stringency. Standard 90.1-1989 is the current reference standard.

In addition to supporting the adoption of its energy standards in model energy codes, ASHRAE urges the direct adoption, by reference, of these standards by state and local code jurisdictions.

Publication date: 06/10/2002