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What is an HVAC System?

Heating, Ventilating, Air-conditioning, and control that handle the three formers.

Heating can be the heat of the air in the space. This shall be handled by different means, for example, radiation or heating the structure around like floor, ceiling Etc.

Ventilating is the process of keeping the mixer of air within the space healthy and clean; this involves interaction with the outside space.

Air-conditioning is the process of cooling of air by throwing the heat outside through water-cooled or air-cooled equipment.

An important part is to handle the humidity of the air to keep its comfort to space.

Control handles all these previous operations together.

New HVAC Regulations:

US Department of Energy (DOE) is forming a new standard that the HVAC industry shall follow.

The aim is to provide a standard that shall reduce the consumed energy as much as possible and reduce possible harmful emission in the air.

Some older titles in the “Energy Policy and Conservation Act,” along with sections in the “National Energy Conservation Policy, 1978” define some constraints and reviews in the HVAC industry.

This shall include small, large, and very large air-cooling/heating equipment and air furnaces.

Currently, a new standard is being planned to take place on Jan 2018 as the first phase, ending in Jan 2023 as a second phase.

This standard is supposed to handle small, large and very large commercial air-condition/heating HVAC systems.

Reasons To Worry About Current HVAC Systems:

With the increasing need for HVAC in the industry like in the data centres and the rapid growth for them.

Associated with their need for 24/7 cooling support, noting the fact the resource in terms of power is limited.

The needs to reduce the energy consumption by new regulations shall never be addressed

HVAC market worth more than 2 billion expected to double by 2025.

The Concept:

Modifying already existing buildings to provide greener or energy-efficient HVAC system can be costly and requires many works and modifications in an already existing structure.

Following a standardized way to allow the new buildings to act efficiently in terms of energy, while it’s in the construction phase, this can be cost-efficient.

Consider, for example, allowing the new building to have warmer and drier air cooling with appropriate dehumidification in the summer, or applying cooler air with surrounding warmer windows and walk around in the winter.

The endpoint is to reach comfortable thermal air with minimum energy consumption.

Handling The Lighting Of The Building During The Construction Phase:

This may be studied during the construction and design of the building.

For examples, T8 and T5 linear fluorescent and compact fluorescent lamps nowadays are a good source of light with energy saving benefits.

Handling operations in 20k Hz frequency, for example, can help to keep smooth operations for the lighting.

Daylight Design

Introduce the option of the surrounding environment and the ability to have sun contact within the internal space.

This shows the ability to reduce the needed cooling focus in HVAC while putting design constraints on the place of the windows.

Treating The Building As A Whole

Rather than treating the building as internally separated sub-areas.

Handing the HVAC in an overall building can be cost-efficient and energy efficient for the whole design.

Either for the building overall or for each sub-area of the building but depending on shared tubes and resources for the HVAC system for example.

Practical Load Balance Of The HVAC Equipment

Measuring practical usage of the equipment, and the max load usage, part usage as it depends on many factors and the size usage of them in the not intended manner can lead to a waste of energy or in the designed architecture.

Commissioning 

Is the task to provide the HVAC system integration, testing, and installation under the current project or building to meet the customers need?

It shows the review and verification of the working of different components of the system based on the specific target.

Most industrial companies follow ASHRAE Standard 202-2013.

Operation And Maintenance

Is the design of systems that can tolerate maintenance for different needs and adhere to the future possible updates and needs?

Allowing architectural component like design to be added or removed without affecting the over design, or reducing side effects to any component in the system.

Many standards are there in the category of

Energy Policy Act of 2005 that is generally to conserve and reduce and maintain and research the energy levels in either building, automotive through the federal rules etc

Greening the government through waste prevention, recycling, and federal acquisition.

Which persuades the use of environmental materials as an alternative way to industrial ones like waste and recyclable resource its environmental act crossing with a federal act to provide greener production with lowering the waste having growth in energy?

ASHRAE Guideline 4-2008, 2013 which covers many areas of the update and maintenance of the component and the related design constraints to meet the maintenance desired.

Energy Efficiency Standards For The Design And Construction Of New Federal Low-Rise Residential Buildings Baseline Standards

This puts regulations on what is named as low-rise federal building planning to be newly established to adhere to the new set of standards that allow the plan of 30% reduction in the consumption of the energy.

Giving regulation for adding space to the cooling space, heating space, heating water needed for the 30% reduction plan. The standard takes care of the climate issues and the problem of emissions.

The standard handles different aspects from windows installation, ceiling insulation, HVAC equipment.

Many initiatives from the energy department have been there to bring innovation to the idea of building energy-saving building or house.

For example, the Energy Department Hosts Workshop to help innovative HVAC system design and installation, providing funding for ideas and new attempts.

ANSI Standards Act for HVAC, Jan 2017.

Code Compliance Brief: Section 460.201 (a).

Make an obligation for manufacturers to install a duct system to prevent leakage of air limiting its total to 4 cubes/minute/100 square feet.

Removes the old system of using the building as sealed or frames of ducts or plenums seemed to be poor practice so it was eliminated in this standard. Yet section (b) of the same Act introduced how to handle this compliance with the old duct system air leakage system.

The regulation continued what was given for the thermostat that is used to control the thermal change and standard practice with the same technique used in previous standard 2015 IECC.

DOC makes an obligation to use only one Thermostat for each cooling/heating system introduced.

DOC checked the Programmable thermostat as it must be able to handle the different need and different configuration during the day, they must provide zero degrees for 55 °F 13 degree to 85 °F 29 degrees.

They also must have a max threshold of 21 degrees from a max heating point and min cooling degree not less than 251 degrees.

The heating system shall be supplied with control that prevents any sudden action or operation when the compressor responsible for the heating malfunctions for example.

The above excludes the defrost case.

Section 460.203 (a) Handle service water heating systems and gives the flexibility to install it and handle it based on the manufacturer’s instruction, noting that as a result, the mountains shall be also same fashion and manufacture dependent. Giving clear and hopefully robust way to maintain and repair such a system in future need. Section 460.203 (b) handled the automatic/manual control systems and the temperature sensors associated with the water heating system be too accessible to the owner of the system giving the ability to repair and handle it smoothly later.

460.203 (c) went on the same old fashion in terms of heated water circulation systems.

460.203 (c) prohibited the gravity/thermosyphon circulation systems as in 2015.

IECC Standard

460.203 (c) The controls responsible for the circulating of hot water and the associated pumps shall be triggered on/off based on the need for hot water,  same as 2015 IECC standard.

The recirculation of hot/cold water and flushing of the hot water being cooled out of the hot water tank and related activities to the recirculation systems in his old standard may not be implemented till not in the DOC standard.

This shall be given room for the new initiative as alternatives.

Similarly, for the drain water heat recovery units, it’s not implemented in DOC standard for current HVAC systems and still under comment phase waiting for discussion for both sides of pros and cons.

DOC proposes to have R-3 of the pipes carrying hot water outside the space and to handle the pipes for the hot water from the heater to the distribution manifold to be also R-3.

DOC showed a preference for electronically commutated motors over induction ones when it comes to handling the ventilation fans mechanics as their ability to preserve the energy level in a good manner.

Section 3280.103 (b) mentioned the rate of ventilation of the building as general or as whole to be within 0.035 cubic feet/minute per square foot

The flow of the air shall be in the range of 50 – 90 cubic feet/minute

460.102 (c) handles the daylight and the ability to address windows and configuration of 50% and related them to other standards.

460.102 (c) checked factor to address the skylight as weight area and calculate the average.

Economic Analysis

DOC made analysis and different zones in the United States and checked that the average Life Cycle Cost Savings in terms of thirty years shall be estimated at $3,211. While this may reach $345 as overall annual energy saving.

From Manufacturer View

DOC performed analysis on the impact of this on the HVAC manufacturer and checked that using GRIM analysis that there is the first phase of investment to buy needed equipment as capital investment and to replace old systems.

With new one’s compliance with the standard where the former and the latter shall be treated as a onetime thing and estimated to be around $37,500 per manufacturer.

The second phase checked the production increase value and it was estimated to be around $1,321 for a single account.

And this is due to the normal increase in the purchase price for the modified compliance equipment.

The third stage checked the scenario of upper bound and able to pass the production increase of the price to the customers and ability to make a profit since the stability in the margin of the profit in current adjustment.

Checking The National Impact On This:

Energy savings introduce a large factor used to generate and transmit power and electricity.

With the existence of different climate zones, there is a need and the cost of the transmission.

A detailed analysis was introduced by DOC resulting in an estimated of Cumulative country energy savings in the manufactured buildings during the period of 2017 till 2046 to be 0.833 for the single section and more than 1 for multi-stage.

Cumulative country energy savings for the manufactured buildings during the period of 2017 till 2046 has to be increased by 4-8% for the single section and more than 1 for multi-stage.

The study handed the growth in the building costs and the Shipments Growth Rate.

DOC checked the new HVAC standard and related equipment shall reduce the emission of the carbon dioxide emission CO2, nitrous oxide N2O., mercury, nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide NOX, sulfur dioxide, SO2 giving better environmental impact.

The study checked the reduction of the energy and reduction in generating materials like fuels and reduces the pollution resulting from its generation, transmission and operation.

All give many benefits and advantages to following the standard.

Discussion About The New Regulations

Having checked above, from many sourcing giving some detailed idea about the new standard, it would make sense to discuss different aspects in terms of practical implementation and practical gain of applying this new regulation and adopting them.

Family Unit

Considering the effect that may occur on simple families with limited income, even part of the standard checked the related department of government responsible for this, yet we need to address this important side.

For such family price and cost would be factored number leaving the comfort or the performance number two, I would assume all factors related to pollution and the environment would fade them.

For old housing, the standard shall not be implemented, yet as a result, the manufactured spare parts for these families’ old HVAC systems shall be a problem as they may not be as frequent as needed nor as available or in the right cost.

Unless the government would apply the mechanism to gradually replace the old system with new regulated compliance ones that would be pushed as support from the government for such families handing related costs and building updates operations.

For the new buildings related to the same category (families), we would still be worried about the cost of the new HVAC equipment.

The fact that simple house in a relatively not so rich area shall be treated as the one in the rich area in terms of the HVAC equipment leaving a problem for such families to complete the construction of their buildings.

Medium Level Entities

Such entities like schools or companies that are able to deal with the cost, they would have obliged to support the environment and the government in terms of the energy, so it would make sense to apply the rules to them.

Large Scale Entities

Like datasets, factories and large-scale enterprises.

By default, they should go for such regulations as a way to reduce their own costs in the first instance.

So the new HVAC regulations shall be of importance when addressing such entities.

These entities are able to provide costs for the new HVAC equipment and do the needed replacement for the old HVAC systems with updated ones.

Their effects on the environment in terms of emission and pollution can be scaled so applying the HVAC standards and regulations on them shall be of great importance when it comes to the environment and energy issues.

Would taxes be considered when applying such standards for any of the above categories?

Depends, it all depends on the type of entity being considered.

If the tax authorities to reduce taxes in exchange for applying such equipment, the energy department and the environment department shall handle part of the taxes and pay them to the tax department.

This shall apply to families with limited income. Or maybe this is just considered for families in general.

This shall be leaving the room for the industry to apply these HVAC installations on their own.

Giving some limit of the enterprise income and expected HVAC cost/size needed.

Affect The Country Economy

Applying HVAC standards shall for sure refresh the HVAC industry and all the related sub-industries.

Giving them the best chance to manufacture and produce the needed HVAC equipment and parts.

The HVAC sales shall be enhanced with expected hope to export such systems outside the country in case the standard to meet global interest, especially when it comes to the pollution problem.

Medium level companies may benefit from this as a new unit to be manufactured and them able till some level to compete with giant HVAC industry or at least co-operate with in order to produce the needed new compliance hardware.

The existing HVAC industry shall be of a risk of not being able to make use of their machines responsible for old HVAC parts’ manufacture.

The ability to sell such machines apart may be of production loss to them, especially if the company not able to compete in the new standard for financial reasons.

Some concerns shall arise when it comes to the export and import of the HVAC equipment to other countries.

The fact this standard be applied within one country doesn’t necessarily mean it shall be adopted or followed by others.

This shall be giving problems for the export gain to be lost with all associated industrial associated companies.

HVAC Human Resources

The technician and workers experienced old HVAC systems shall get training on the new standard, giving them the chance to learn new skills and remain active persons in the same area.

The fact of losing people their jobs or having let go shall not be a concern.

Many skills shall be needed to finalize and update the HVAC new regulations and standards, giving the chance for a new ongoing learning curve.

And giving the chance for new medium level business to employ new resources needed to research and compete and apply to new or ongoing regulations.

Environmental Concerns

Even this might be against the basic of the main reason for the new expected regulation; some issues may still be of concern.

Current science depends on the specific measurement of the emission of known gases and pollution resources.

The negative effects till some points were tested and lived.

Applying HVAC new equipment for large scale may address new, unknown or unchecked problems with space.

Addressing them then may be a problem as the cost to revert them or update or even remove them would be a real problem.

So the fact multiple manufactured HVAC systems out there can reduce such note or make it not on the surface.

All following certain behavior shall introduce such behaviour which shall be a countrywide problem and get away from it would still follow the same strategy.

Even this note may be against the simple rule of having standardized regulations can always be a good industry practice.

Yet when it comes to HVAC, the first concern of such a topic would be a side effect on the environment.

The standard shall be applied gradually as discussed above, giving the chance to test it.

But certain and close tests shall be applied having this note in view to check and verify the outcome of the new HVAC equipment and installation on the surrounding environment.

Maybe one way to deal with such issue would be to try to absorb any expected or already existing negative emission or pollution from such systems into nature.

It’s the best source of good things and shall handle any negative emissions wisely even without the science is able to.

So the standard shall simply address the need to apply environmental enhance in terms of natural enhancement and allowing more green lands and trees to just grow and be seeded.

This shall be inserted as a measurement related to things like the daylight and sunlight related issues already being handled in the standard, but not from the energy perspective, rather from the environmental view to making sure to keep the green energy stronger which shall be the best practice to keep the new HVAC healthy and green.