Regional Efficiency Reporting Rules

Right in the middle of the hottest and busiest summer in years the government is helping us by adding some more regulations and paperwork. The good news is that you probably already keep the records they are requiring. The Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office (EERE) has just issued their final ruling on enforcement of the regional energy efficiency standards. The ruling requires equipment manufacturers, distributors, and contractors to keep records of the equipment they sell. It also requires that split systems be matched, and makes a distinction between uncased coils used as part of a complete system installation and those used as a replacement part.

The law on which this ruling is based is not new. It is Title III of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975. This specific ruling is new. It is a follow-up to the Regional Efficiency Standards. Although the regional efficiency standards have in been in place now since January 1, 2015, the details regarding enforcement are new.

What Equipment is covered by this ruling?
The Energy Policy and Conservation Act defines a “central air conditioner” as a “product . . . which . . . is a heat pump or a cooling only unit” and refers to all central air conditioners as one “product.” So when they say air conditioner, they are including heat pumps. Split system air conditioning and heat pump condensing units, cased coils, uncased coils installed as part of a new installation, packaged air conditioning and heat pump systems are all covered by this ruling.  NOT covered by this ruling are furnaces and uncased coils installed as replacement parts.

Who Must Keep Records?
Equipment manufacturers, distributors, and contractors must all keep records. However, the information you are required to keep depends upon which of these you are and what specific equipment is involved.

For every condensing unit, indoor unit and packaged unit installation, contractors must keep the following information for four years:

• Manufacturer
• Model Number
• Serial Number (NOT required for indoor units including blower coils, cased coils, and uncased coils installed as part of a new installation)
• Installation Location including the street address, city, state and zip code
• Installation Date
• Party from whom the unit was purchased, including the seller’s name, address and phone#

I expect most contractors already do record all the items on this list. Most manufacturers will want this information for warranty purposes. If you plan to service the equipment for the customer, you certainly want to know things like the model number, serial number, location, and date of installation. Since any properly installed system should last much longer than four years, keeping those records for at least four years makes perfect sense. Furnaces are not covered by this ruling. However, as long as you are keeping detailed information on the coil sitting on top of the furnace, why not go ahead and record the furnace information as well?

It is interesting to note that the condensing unit and coil are being listed separately. It is really not correct to say a condensing unit is 14 SEER, because it needs a matching coil. Since different matches yield different results, a single condensing unit can produce a range of efficiencies. To address this issue, the lowest rating point using the condensing unit manufacturer’s own indoor coil is what determines where a split system condensing unit may be used. So if a condensing unit has a rating of 13 SEER with one coil and 14 SEER with another coil, it will be considered 13 SEER unit. When using a third party indoor coil, the coil must be matched to the condenser. However, a third party coil may not be used to increase a condenser’s rating point above the manufacturer rating. For the purposes of meeting the minimum efficiency for your area, you may not use one manufacturer’s coil matched to another manufacturer’s condenser to obtain a rating higher than the condenser manufacturer lists. Obviously, this CAN be done, but it won’t qualify the unit as a 14 SEER unit if the condenser manufacturer lists a 13 SEER coil match for that unit.

Records must be kept for all cased coils. Records on uncased coils may or may not be required depending upon their use. If an uncased coil is a replacement part, you do not have to keep records on it.  An example would be replacing a leaky indoor coil on an existing system. However, if an uncased coil is used as part of a complete install, then you do have to keep records on that coil. You are not required to keep serial numbers on indoor coils. Many indoor coils do not have a serial number.

If you are looking for an easy way to keep this data, I suggest an Excel spreadsheet. Excel is a commonly used program and many of you may already have it. A spreadsheet does not take up lot of space and you can keep data on several systems on a single spreadsheet. Depending upon the number of systems you install in a month, you could have a spreadsheet for each month, or even one for the entire year.

I have put together a very simple Excel spreadsheet which you might like to use. The data handling functions of Excel allow you to sort and search data by different categories.  For example, a search of listings by model number or by address. Here is the link to download the file.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0i1Mw3czgHrMmFwRlR4dzVWR1k


I encourage you to read it for yourself – as government regulations go it is pretty short. Here is a link to the ruling.
http://www.regulations.gov/document?D=EERE-2011-BT-CE-0077-0102

You might also like to read an excellent article by Jen Anesi in "The Air Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration News.”
http://www.achrnews.com/articles/132995-new-ac-reporting-rules-coming

Pull a Deep Vacuum Twice as Fast

How much would you pay for a vacuum pump that could evacuate a system in half the time of your current one? Think of how much time it would save you! The good news is you can probably cut your evacuation time in half just by changing your vacuum setup.  If you are like most techs, you are using ¼” hoses and your standard manifold while pulling through Schrader valves. And that is exactly the problem. The Schrader valves, gauge passages and small hoses all add up to a big restriction. No matter how wonderful your pump is you can’t pull a vacuum quickly through that setup. So the answer is not to get a new vacuum pump, it is to connect it with less restriction.

This will involve some financial investment in better equipment, but it will cost less than a new vacuum pump and yield far more results. First, I would purchase two core removal tools. They cost about $50 each. Removing the Schrader core while you evacuate the system is the single most important step in reducing the restriction and reducing the time it takes to evacuate a system. This $100 investment should cut your time in half, even if you don’t change anything else.

The next recommendation is to get a short ½” hose to connect to the ½” port on your vacuum pump. Appion makes a 6” hose with a ½” connection on one end and a 3/8” connection on the other. If you are using four port gauges with a 3/8” vacuum port, this short hose will connect right to it.  This costs around $35. So for $135 you can easily cut your vacuum time in half if you are already using four-port gauges with a 3/8” vacuum port.

You don’t have a 3/8” vacuum port on your gauges? If you are using valve core tools you don’t really need gauges to pull a vacuum. The valves in the core tools allow you to blank off after the vacuum is pulled and connect your charging hoses and refrigerant. With that in mind, put a 3/8” tee on the short hose which is connected to the vacuum pump. Finally, connect two hoses from the tee to the core tools. Appion makes ½” hoses with a 3/8” connection on one end and a ¼” connection on the other which will allow you to do this. These are about $75 each. Since you are using valve core tools, you can connect your vacuum gauge to the side port of one of the core tools.

A couple of final notes. Change the oil in your vacuum pump! Vacuum pump oil gets dirty every time it is used, and dirty oil reduces the vacuum pump’s ability to pull a good vacuum. Not to mention letting running the vacuum pump with dirty oil can shorten its life and you WILL need a new vacuum pump.  You should always start out with fresh oil every time you use your vacuum pump. For large jobs, or particularly dirty systems you may need to change the oil more than once. And of course, use a vacuum gauge. Without a vacuum gauge you don’t really know when you have a good vacuum. You can get a micro BlueVac vacuum gauge for around $100.

 

Refrigerant Cylinder Color

“Hey, grab that Wedge Wood Blue cylinder and let’s go charge this unit. No, that’s the Royal Blue one. There it is, right next to the Medium Blue cylinder. No, that is the Sky Blue cylinder. Gosh, don’t you know your refrigerant colors?”

Back in the good ole days, we just had a few colors to keep up with. Most of us just had to recognize the difference between green, white, and purple.  Now there are so many different shades that not even an interior decorator can keep up with them.

AHRI Guidline N is where the industry normally lists the colors of the different refrigerant cylinders. The latest version lists 46 different colors – the big box of crayons. That is why you should always read the cylinder label, not just go on the color. Guideline N describes four classes of refrigerants and they allow the same color to be used in different refrigerant classes. So it is possible that Sky Blue cylinder could have either R-134a or R-13. The only way you know is to read the label.

PMS 413

In the future you will have an even better reason to read the label – all refrigerant cylinders will be the same color. The 2016 edition of Guideline N specifies that all Refrigerant containers should be painted light green gray (RAL 7044 corresponding with PMS 413) starting in 2020. This is spelled out in section 4.8.

PMS 185

One critical color to recognize is red – PMS 185. Cylinders containing flammable refrigerant should have a red band on the shoulder or top of the container. This is specified in section 4.7. Not only should you read the cylinder label, you should be familiar with the properties of any refrigerant you handle. If you start working with a new refrigerant, you should read the safety data sheet. Most refrigerant manufacturers also have refrigerant properties and handling instructions online. You can download and read the details of Guideline N for yourself  HERE

Keep the Fireworks Out of the Fusebox

Fuses are one of the simpler devices that we work with, yet techs do not really know some important fuse specifications. What you don’t know could hurt you if you use the wrong type of fuse as a replacement. Fuses have five important ratings: voltage, amps, interrupting, one-time or time delay, and finally whether or not it is current limiting.  Most techs are familiar with the volt rating and the amp rating, but a lot are unfamiliar with the interrupting rating.

Although all fuses are designed to open when the current exceeds their amp rating, this does not happen instantly. In the case of a dead short, the fuse will be subjected to a much higher level of current for a fraction of a second. For a fraction of a second, the fuse can be exposed to 100,000 amps, causing it to explode like a bomb! The amount of current the fuse can withstand and not explode like a bomb is called the interrupting rating, listed as IR on the fuse body. Inexpensive fuses have an interrupting rating of 10,000 amps – which is comparable to most breakers. Better quality fuses have much higher interrupting ratings – such as 200,000 amps.

Two fuses can have the same volt and amp rating but have vastly different interrupting ratings. If you replace a fuse which has a 200,000 amp interrupting rating with one which has only a 10,000 amp interrupting rating, you are creating a bomb. If you take look at the two fuses pictured here, you can see that they are both 600 volt, 30 amp fuses and are physically interchangeable. However, the one on the top has a 200,000 interrupting rating but the interrupting rating of the fuse on the bottom is only 50,000. They are not functionally interchangeable.

Further, the fuse on the top is designed to be a current limiting fuse. This means that it limits the amount of current that can pass downstream of the fuse. I can hear you saying “all fuses are current limiting.” Not really. During that fraction of a second after a direct short, thousands of amps pass downstream through the fuse. A current limiting fuse limits this spike. Typically, the spike is limited to 10,000 amps. The importance of this is that it can reduce or even prevent an arc flash from happening in the equipment down-stream of the fuse. This is why industrial and commercial services usually protect their service panels with current limiting fuses which have a high interrupting rating. Keep the fireworks out of the fusebox. Always replace fuses with ones that meet ALL the fuse specifications, not just the volt and amp ratings.