ARLINGTON, Va. - The Air Conditioning Contractors of America (ACCA) has released an abridged version of Manual J, Eighth Edition.

According to ACCA, the Abridged Edition (MJ8-AE) provides complete instructions for estimating heat loss and heat gain for single-family, single-zone residential structures. It is sufficient for learning the Manual J procedures and undertaking load calculations on a variety of home applications.

MJ8-AE was created in response to contractor requests for an easy, hand-calculation approach that is consistent with Manual J procedures, says ACCA. In addition, MJ8-AE provides industry instructors and trainers with an easy-to-teach Manual J residential load approach.

Room-by-room and whole-house block loads are exampled, explained, and solved. Also, appendices provide information related to physical principles of home construction materials, troubleshooting system design problems, and a glossary of frequently encountered terms.

MJ8-AE comes with a technician-friendly Microsoft Excelâ„¢ spreadsheet that produces solutions for houses that are compatible with the capabilities and limitations of MJ8-AE, ACCA says. The template is available for those users who desire a tool that removes the mathematics, simplifies the calculations, and allows "what-if" problem solving. The MJ8-AE template produces a printable hard copy version of Form J1AE suitable for customer presentation.

Manual J8, Abridged Edition can be ordered online at www.acca.org or by calling 888-290-2220.

Publication date: 04/18/2005