Articles Tagged with ''regulations for HVACR''

While it remains to be seen how the new minimum-efficiency standards will impact the industry as a whole, most distributors are breathing a sigh of relief that their decision to stock more 13-SEER equipment is paying off, leaving them time to start thinking about what to do with the next round of minimum-efficiency standards, which the DOE is considering right now for residential furnaces.

As the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) works on its final rule and Congress works on possibly delaying that rule, HVAC industry stakeholders have settled into a holding pattern with no other option than to wait and see what happens next.

At a recent cookout I attended, the subject turned to the demotion in June of NBC’s Brian Williams from the anchor desk of the NBC Nightly News to the vast hinterlands of cable news and MSNBC. This occurred after the revelation that he fabricated multiple stories and that his “first hand” accounts of what happened were about as truthful as the score keeping at a golf scramble.

The code, scheduled to be released in 2018, will be powered by ANSI/ASHRAE/ICC/IES/USGBC Standard 189.1, “Standard for the Design of High-Performance, Green Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings.” 

The agreement will support the accelerated global transition to new refrigerants brought on by the Montreal Protocol’s ozone layer protection targets by addressing challenges in soundly and safely managing refrigerants. 

For two years, the commercial refrigeration industry has been reeling from a one-two regulatory punch from the DOE and the EPA. This convergence of aggressive regulations was unprecedented for our industry. It has forced us to explore every possibility to engineer the next generation of refrigeration systems.

The European Partnership for Energy and the Environment (EPEE) hosted a debate on June 30 organized by PubAffairs entitled “Heating and cooling in the Energy Union project: the challenges ahead for implementing an efficiency-based energy approach.”

More than a few U.S. Representatives came out against the DOE’s recently proposed 92 percent AFUE nationwide residential furnace standard. That standard might be the worst idea since subprime mortgages.

The 92 percent proposed standard is just one of the DOE’s rulemakings to be challenged recently by stakeholders, and it’s unlikely to be the last. 

More than 80 HVACR distributors, wholesalers, manufacturers, and reps recently attended the seventh annual event with the goal of bringing their concerns directly to the elected officials who represent their states and districts.