Bonus Mini-Episode: AHRI Certification Mapped Ratings Explainer

AHRI’s Certification program has been around for almost 90 years. Over the decades, it has expanded to include more products and to offer more services – like regulation compliance verification in the U.S. and around the world.

HVACR and water heating products are complex, and one of the most valuable things AHRI Certification offers is performance assurance, not only to homeowners, but to consulting engineers and architects.

In the latest episode of the Making Life Better podcast, AHRI Senior Vice President of Global Services Henry Hwong, joins host Regan Spencer to discuss how AHRI provides that assurance as products and systems evolve to serve more markets and become more efficient.

Learn more about AHRI Certification: https://www.ahrinet.org/certification

Visit the AHRI Certified Directory of Certified Product Performance: https://ahridirectory.org

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Welcome to Making Life Better, an AHRI podcast. Here we'll keep you informed about our upcoming events, important policy issues affecting the industry, updates to our globally recognized and industry-respected equipment certification program, and we'll even share some fun human interest stories and history related to the world of HPACR. This is the place to learn all the ways our members and AHRI make life better for everyone. Welcome back to Making Life Better, an AHRI podcast. I'm Reagan Spencer, the communications manager at AHRI. AHRI's certification program has been around for almost 90 years. Over the decades, we've expanded the program to include more products and to offer more services like regulation compliance verification in the U.S. and around the world. HVACR and water heating products are complex, and one of the most valuable things we offer is performance assurance, not only to homeowners, but to consulting engineers and architects. For this episode, my guest is AHRI Senior Vice President of Global Services, Henry Huang, to discuss how we provide that assurance as products and systems evolve to serve more markets and become more efficient. Our certification program verifies that a manufacturer's products meet AHRI's standard of performance. Can you give us a brief overview of how the program works?

SPEAKER_00 1:41

The concept of HR certification is actually pretty simple. Manufacturers rate and test their products to the relevant HRI, or in some other cases, internationally accepted standards, and submit those ratings to HRI before they're allowed to claim and market those same ratings. HR would then on a random basis throughout the year select random samples, test it in an independent laboratory, just to confirm if those ratings submitted to HRA are accurate. If they are, then they have to keep those ratings. If they're not, then they're required to rewrite them. And that may even trigger some additional penalty tests, or even in some cases, monetary penalties. You know, we like to simply call them the tell-the-truth programs.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

When a consulting engineer or even a homeowner looks for the performance rating of a product on our online directory, what do they typically find?

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Well, what they will find in all cases are the HR certified ratings, things like cooling capacity, heating capacity, efficiency parameters such as EER, SER, COP, and all the other rated parameters as described by the standard. This is a very quick way for the user to compare the official HR certified ratings against claims by the manufacturers. What you will also find is a unique HR reference number for that particular unit. This reference number makes it very easy for anyone to find the unit in question from all more than I think 7 million listings on the directory. In addition, uh, if you click on the reference number, it'll take you to a separate page. This certificate will provide much more detail on the unit, such as the refrigerant type, uh the intended market, uh, energy star compliant, uh, whether it has a co-climate designation and uh relevant CE, tier level, so a whole bunch of other information uh that you wouldn't find on just the main page. Uh just certificate, also uh, as I mentioned earlier, generated in real time, is often uh requested and demanded as uh really the authoritative proof for performance using bid packages. And it's also required at times for demand side management programs such as utility rebate. So it's actually quite useful and uh it provides a lot of information.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

I understand that some products are designed to operate in very different climates, conditions, and for specific applications. Can you explain how we rate and test chillers, for example?

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Yeah, sure. Um, I mean, for a lot of our products that are designed for residential use, we typically rate and test them at a standard rating condition that mirrors typical use and for the purpose of comparison. However, for some commercial products like chillers, like you mentioned, these conditions vary greatly. And although a standard rating condition is established for these commercial products, uh they actually operate greatly across different uh applications, different conditions. And this is why HRI, we certify a whole range of application ratings in addition to the standard ratings condition, uh, what we call these uh map ratings, right? So these are a bunch of application rating points in addition to the standard rating condition. So in verification testing, as in the case of chillers, uh, we test what we call a wildcard point in addition to the standard rating condition. So this wild card point can be anywhere on the map and is selected by HRI staff, and the manufacturers do not have prior knowledge of this point that HRI has selected until just before the test. So it really gives a lot of integrity to the fact that the entire uh map ratings and application points are certified and tested by doing this wildcard point in addition to the standard rating condition.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Is the wildcard point what sets those mapped ratings apart from the standard ratings that you see on most program certificates?

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Yeah, absolutely. The wildcard point is what sets it apart because the standard rating condition is established. So it's in the it's part of the standard, so everybody knows it. So it's uh it's a point that we always test, and it's it's good for a purpose of comparison to other uh children, so whatever the product may be. But the wildcard could be anywhere on that map. So uh it really is what makes certification for the entire map uh possible. So yeah, the wildcard testing really sets it apart uh from uh any other type of uh certification that we do.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

And why are mapped ratings useful when these kind of products are being specified for projects? For example, if a manufacturer that is certified with us wanted to promote the fact that they can share third-party verified mapped ratings, what would they say?

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Yeah, I mean the certified map rating is very important because um these supplied products, they will almost never operate at the one point designated as a standard rating condition. I mean, especially if you look at how these products are used as part of the system. So, I mean, if I was a specifier, I certainly would want all the operating points within the map to be certified and subject to testing instead of just a single point, because the single point, you know, like I mentioned earlier, is something that will probably never be used in a real life application. It's a good point of comparison. But if I was uh designing a system, then it's very important to have the whole map certified.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Why can't we print these ratings on certificates like we do with other programs?

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Well, that's a great question. I I think it's uh it's a point of also a lot of confusion and misinformation. And the reason is because the ply product, like chillers or handlers, uh, they often are configured products. What I mean, what I mean is that they're configured from hundreds or even thousands of possible combinations, components that make up a chiller, makes up a handler. So each combination is unique and uh could have drastically different uh performance are typically selected uh using the manufacturer's proprietary selection software. So if you put together the thousands of possible combinations of a configured product and entire operating map, you literally could have millions of possible combinations. And that's why it's impossible to print ratings on a certificate like other programs with a single rating point.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

How does the verification process work for products with mapped ratings?

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Well, the key to verification of applied products in mapped ratings is really the uh proprietor selection software I mentioned earlier. Uh every HRI certified manufacturers are required to submit that selection software to HRI for approval before they can use it. This means that also uh any needs for changes, they need to submit that before they can use it. So basically, what we're saying is that 100% of all selection software used by HRI certification participants are reviewed and maintained by HRI. HRI, uh, we have created virtual machines where softwares are kept for every single manufacturer, for every single program that utilizes map ratings. And this allows HRI to really make the selections for testing at any condition and verify any certified performance claim. In fact, uh HRI offers a free verification service where anyone can request a performance claim of a certified product using map ratings, and HRI performed thousands of these verifications annually.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

And when did AHRI decide to offer mapped rating certification and why?

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Well, believe it or not, certified map ratings have been around for uh more than 50 years. First programs with map ratings were air heating, cooling coils, and air handlers, followed by chillers. Recent additions uh to map rating certification includes uh fan coils and ERV. And I think this is really the direction many of our programs are heading towards. And the reason is because our members and our customers demand it. And it's really the only way to properly present uh useful information for applied products.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

All right, that is all of my questions. Do you have anything to add?

SPEAKER_00 9:54

I think it's really good that we have the opportunity to get this out there because, like I mentioned earlier, there's a lot of confusion about uh why some of these uh applied products, HR certified, uh using MapReading, doesn't actually have any performance data on the directory. Uh, and and it's good to explain why and uh explain the uh verification service that HRI provides so that consumers and users can actually get that data from HRI.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Yeah, I think this will be a good resource for them. Thanks for joining me.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Thank you, Regan.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

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