Ratings Committee Moves Forward on Deadline for Dynamic Attachments

A deadline regarding the consideration of attachment products in ratings figured prominently in the today's last meeting.

Currently, products with dynamic attachments can be rated without considering the attachment.

A looming March 1, 2009 deadline, however, would require that any ratings consider the attachment product.

As a result of unavoidable delays in assessing the simulation software, the Window 6/Therm 6 Validation Research Project Monitoring Task Goup and the Window 6/Therm 6 Approval Task Group jointly and formally recommended to the Certification Subcommittee that the current mandatory date of March 1, 2010 be suspended. A motion calling for the suspension of any deadline pending thorough assessment of the simulation software passed, and will be forwarded to the Board.

Ratings Subcommittees Address Various Issues

Earlier in the afternoon, the subcommittees that report to the Ratings Committee got down to business. The Component Modeling Approach (CMA) Ratings Subcommittee kicked off the block with a report from Sneh Kumar, who leads the CMA Complex Products Task Group. He explained that the task was formed at the last meeting and has twice met. He encouraged people to join and participate in the task group.

The Subcommittee then posed a question, in reference to NFRC 705-2009, Section 5.1, for discussion: Should an Approved Calculation Entity (ACE) “select and contract” with an Inspection Agency (IA) that will conduct ACE calculation reviews? After the group discussed the issue, the Subcommittee recommended revision of that section of the PCP document. It directed the Task Group to handle this task (and ballot it for the November Membership Meeting), recommending that the revision reflect that the specifying authority would be responsible for contracting with IAs for those types of review discussed.

The Labeling Subcommittee followed CMA Rating Subcommittee, with reports from the CMA Label Task Group and the Attachment Label Task Group. The Subcommittee then discussed requirements for metric labeling. It was reported that Natural Resources Canada permits NFRC labels to show two decimal places for easier comparison of products between U.S. and Canadian programs. The Subcommittee decided to form a special task force to review metric ratings and labeling issues.

The Certification Subcommittee made the following motions, and all of them passed:

• Move the NFRC 700 product line ID forward to Board for approval
• Move the NFRC 700 Private labeler ballot forward to the Board for approval and implementation upon publication
• Move 700 Section 6 and Appendix B fwd to Board for approval and to be implemented upon publication
• Move the NFRC 700 Section 4&5 ballot forward to the NFRC Board for approval and to be implemented upon a date to be determined after approval of Window 6/Therm 6 software

A number of other notable motions presented during this meeting blocked passed. For example:

• Moving the NFRC 700 W6/T6 forward for approval and to be implemented upon approval of the Window 6 and Therm 6 software
• Changing the language in section 6.4.2 D of the NFRC 700, which currently reads, “shall include whole product ratings" to add "as applied to a reference window”
• Applied films should only be rated over worst-case reference windows; and be consistent in type and performance values as those in the IECC window default table