As you know, our primary focus on PowerTips is to provide you with tips, tactics, and techniques for building a strong, consistently profitable remodeling company. But sometimes we just need to make sure you’re on top of the latest industry news! This week we’re proud to have Stefanie Petersen with Ferguson to share the key changes to HVAC Efficiency standards in 2015. In April 2014, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) confirmed upcoming changes for HVAC efficiency standards for residential and commercial equipment. However, according to a survey by Emerson Climate Technologies Inc., 74 percent of contractors are unaware of the change and how to best prepare their staff and inventory to meet customer demand and new regulations. Below are key aspects every remodeler should know. New Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio (SEER) standards will be enforced for air conditioners and heat pumps installed on or after January 1, 2015; however, standards differ by region. The current 13 SEER standard for air conditioners will move to 14 SEER in most areas, but 13 SEER air conditioning units can still be sold in the northern region.

The most significant product change regarding the new regulations involves all split-system heat pumps. All regions will move from 13 SEER and 7.7 HSPF, Heating Seasonal Performance Factor, to the new national heat pump efficiency minimum of 14 SEER and 8.2 HSPF. Additionally, the changes also affect the FTC EnergyGuide label, commonly referred to as the yellow “hang tag”, attached to the heating and cooling system. The label contains SEER and HSPF ratings for the unit in relation to similar models. Instead of a single rating point, new labels for split-system air conditioners and heat pumps will now be shown in a range representing the lowest and highest SEER ratings for all the condenser’s certified coil combinations. This means all of the component parts in the entire system, inside and out, must have an aggregate SEER that meets the new guidelines. Education surrounding the new standards is key, as enforcement will begin in less than five months. Remodelers and contractors should be able to identify that the equipment being installed meets the minimum standards of the new regulations as well as meets the needs of the customer.

The majority of U.S. manufacturers already offer 14 SEER heat pump systems, and many manufacturers may spruce up current 14 SEER designs to meet product demands for 2015 inventory stocking. While the changes are effective January 1, 2015, the new regulation also includes an 18-month grace period for distributors to sell their remaining inventory. Image courtesy of Emerson Climate TechnologiesHeating and air conditioning contractors, like the rest of us, make mistakes. They make mistakes that hurt performance and efficiency of the HVAC systems they install and maintain. They make mistakes that hurt their customers sometimes. And they make mistakes that hurt their businesses. Let's look at 7 of the biggest mistakes today. Although Energy Vanguard is not an HVAC contractor, we have a lot to do with heating and air conditioning systems. We train home energy raters (a.k.a. HERS raters) in the RESNET protocols and building analysts in the BPI protocols. We also do quality assurance for HERS raters, which requires us to enforce guidelines for programs like ENERGY STAR New Homes.

We may not be licensed to install and maintain equipment, but we know a thing or two about it. If you've been a reader of this blog for a while, you know that I write about HVAC a lot, and many of those articles are pointing out problems. Turns out, they're very easy to find because so many HVAC contractors leave big messes in their customers' homes. central air conditioner units for mobile homesNot all HVAC contractors work this way, of course, but the majority do. ac unit running but not coolingThe good ones have successful businesses not only because they do good work for their customers, but they make more money by coming in and cleaning up the messes left by the sloppy contractors.brands of ac units Here then, are what I see as the top 7 mistakes that HVAC contractors make:

If an HVAC contractor responds to a call about carbon monoxide, they'll usually go straight to the furnace and look for cracks in the heat exchanger. When they find that it's OK, they often assume it must have just been a false alarm, so they change the batteries in the CO alarm. David Richardson, a former HVAC contractor who now works fulltime for the National Comfort Institute training people in combustion safety and air flow, wrote a guest post for us here a couple of years ago about this very issue. The problem is that most HVAC contractors don't know much about backdrafting of combustion appliances. Nor do they test for it. If you're an HVAC contractor and not testing for flue gases and worst-case depressurization on these calls, you're leaving a potentially dangerous situation. You never want to find out the next day that the people in the house you just visited are in the hospital with CO poisoning. This is the problem that I've probably written more articles about than any other.

If the vast majority of HVAC contractors did professional quality work, I wouldn't be able to go into house after house after house and find the kind of duct problem you see at the top of this page. If all HVAC contractors were pros, no one would know what a ductopus (below) is. If HVAC contractors understood air flow, most duct systems would be larger than they are. Mike MacFarland of Energy Docs, an HVAC contractor in California, told me last year at Building Science Summer Camp that he pretty much never does a system changeout without also doing a duct changeout. Because he knows that the existing ductwork, even if it's relatively new, probably wasn't sized right, is too leaky, and would lead to more trouble and expense than just starting over. In the residential market, HVAC contractors go into people's homes every single day. They go into attics, crawl spaces, and basements, where they can see the quality of the insulation and air sealing in the home's building enclosure.

Even if the HVAC contractor doesn't do the insulation and air-sealing work, it's a great complementary service to advise the homeowners on the other work their home could use to improve its overall performance. It seems a bit paradoxical that so many HVAC company names include the word 'comfort' yet they don't really address all the issues that affect comfort. Once you truly understand that naked people need building science, you know that mechanical systems aren't the answer to all comfort problems. And if you walk out of a house without looking at all of the home performance issues, you're leaving money on the table, as the saying goes. Would you rather walk out with a $7000 contract or a $20,000 contract?The insulting way to state this is that any HVAC contractor who doesn't address the V in HVAC is just a HAC (read: hack). New homes are tighter than ever because of energy codes that require higher levels of air-sealing and in some cases, blower door tests to verify the airtightness.

Tight homes need mechanical ventilation. All homes need spot ventilation in kitchens and bathrooms. Are you really including the V in HVAC? Do you know what ASHRAE 62.2 is? Do you understand the 3 strategies for providing mechanical ventilation (positive pressure, negative pressure, and balanced)? Have you measured the air flow in your ventilation systems? My friend John Barba, a trainer for hydronics manufacturer Taco, suggested this title, and I love it. HVAC contractors like rules of thumb. They also rely on what they think worked in the past. "Son, this is the way we've always done it around here, and we've been in business longer than you've been alive."Heating and cooling systems aren't the same as they were 50 years ago. Rules of thumb don't work because every house is different. If you want to size a system properly, you've got to come up with some way of getting at the rate of heat loss and heat gain in the home you're working on. Manual J is probably the best way for new homes, and timing the existing system's runtime during design conditions is the best for existing homes (if you have that option).

HVAC systems are complex technology. If you're relying on rules of thumb or doing things the way you've always done them, then you're not serving your customers well. The race to the bottom results in everyone being a loser. The ones who don't get the contract lose. The one who gets the contract can't do the work properly because they have to scrimp on labor and materials. And the homeowner loses because, as the saying goes, you get what you pay for. When contractors try to get low-bid work, they have to keep all their costs as low as possible. They hire poorly trained techs and then don't do enough—or anything—to get them trained properly and keep them updated. They use equipment that won't last. They do the least work they possibly can on the distribution system. This is no way to run a business. Because there are so many companies willing to do this, though, there will always be room for smart contractors to come in and do things right. First, you've got to get to HVAC-as-a-system thinking by getting past the sins described in numbers 1, 2, and 4 above.

Once you include combustion safety and distribution and ventilation in your scope, you're ready to go beyond and look at the whole house. This leads to the opportunities in mistake number 3 above, of course, but it's bigger than that. When you understand the house-as-a-system concept, you become a problem solver. You know how to listen to homeowners and help fix things so their daughter's cough goes away or the mildew in the bathroom stops growing or that one room they can't stand to be in becomes part of their living space again. This is Building Science 101, and smart HVAC contractors know this stuff. If you're an HVAC contractor, which path will you choose? One path leads to problems. You constantly have to find new customers because it's hard for the ones you have to feel any loyalty to you if your work isn't remarkable. And if your customers are always looking for the low bid, you may get them one time, but the next time you follow up with them, you find that someone underbid you.