Maybe an organization is designing a new building. Or maybe a maintenance or engineering manager is placing a bid for a retrofit heating, ventilation, air conditioning and commercial refrigeration (HVACR) and water-heating system in a commercial or institutional building, or replacing an aging chiller or rooftop unit.
No matter what the situation, managers should insist on AHRI Certified® HVACR and water-heating equipment. These days, odds are that managers and other in-house parties involved in the process have made saving energy an important part of the decision to upgrade or, in the case of a new building, an important component in meeting specific requirements under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system.
Certainly, when it comes to designing a HVACR system for a facility, the choices and decisions can be daunting. One thing that is for certain is that the system's design needs to be based on accurate performance ratings. For this reason, managers should start the project off right by specifying HVACR and water-heating equipment and components listed in the AHRI Directory of Certified Product Performance, which is available at www.ahridirectory.org. Products listed in this directory have been subject to rigorous, third-party testing and have been found to meet the performance claims of the manufacturer.
AHRI's certification programs cover product categories from air-to-air, energy-recovery ventilators to variable-refrigerant-flow systems to water heaters. Each program certifies different performance ratings that are tested using one of 100 AHRI standards and guidelines that were developed based on industry consensus and sound engineering practices.
HVACR and water-heating equipment and components bearing the Globally Recognized, Industry Respected trusted AHRI Performance Certified™ mark have undergone rigorous, annual testing by an independent laboratory to verify the accuracy of performance claims. To maintain certification status and the integrity of the program, AHRI, through its independent laboratories, tests a representative and random sampling of a participating manufacturer's products annually.
For more than 75 years, the majority of HVACR and water-heating equipment manufacturers have participated in AHRI's voluntary certification programs. Hundreds of thousands of products have earned the AHRI Certified® mark and are listed in the AHRI Directory of Certified Product Performance.
This real-time, online database provides valuable tools to conduct performance comparisons of similar products offered by multiple manufacturers. The ability to compare product-performance ratings allows managers, engineers, architects and contractors to easily select the appropriate equipment and components for a particular job with the assurance that the product will perform as indicated. Directory users can search by product lines, certified ratings and manufacturer.
