< Previous20 MAY 2018HIGH PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAYwhile others had trouble detecting savings at all. One study even indicated negative overall savings for comprehensive equipment maintenance that included RCA as one measure. To understand what’s behind the highly variable results, it’s important to understand that EM&V impact evaluations can take several dif-ferent approaches to answer the same question - how much savings did the program achieve? For RCA, EM&V faces a particularly difficult challenge. The typical savings claimed for RCA tend to be small compared to the energy use of the HVAC equipment, and are downright min-iscule compared to the energy use of a whole building. This makes direct measurement of the savings very difficult and expensive, or simply impossible. Further confounding the results, many RCA programs include a broader tune-up or mainte-nance program. This means there are many other measures that also impact energy use, so it’s easy to lose track of the performance of the RCA mea-sure itself. To address these challenges, some extreme-ly indirect methods have been developed for EM&V. One approach is to use laboratory re-search data to establish the impact of vary-ing levels of refrigerant charge deficiencies on equipment efficiency and capacity. This is then coupled with program data on refrigerant charge addition or removal amounts to estimate the efficiency and capacity impacts for each ad-justment that the program made. Finally, the efficiency and capacity impacts are simulated in a building energy simulation pro-gram like eQuest or Energy Plus to estimate the annual energy savings. As you can imagine, there are so many in-Many High-Performance HVAC Today readers are at least famil-iar with utility energy efficiency programs that pay an incentive for adjusting refrigerant charge. These programs are typically designed to correct low or high refrig-erant charges in residential and light commercial HVAC systems. Over the past two decades, many sources have pointed out the significant opportu-nity in correcting refrigerant charge. The story goes that charge deficiencies are widespread in split systems and rooftop units. This equipment is nearly ubiquitous in both res-idential and light commercial buildings, creating a huge energy savings opportunity. The prem-ise seems so simple and promising that literally hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent nationally over the past decade to pursue these energy savings. Here’s an unsettling question to ponder: What if we’ve been wrong all along?TOUGH QUESTIONS, MIXED RESULTSEnergy Measurement and Verification (EM&V) on Refrigerant Charge Adjustment (RCA) pro-grams has produced mixed results over the past 10 years. Some studies found excellent savings, Refrigerant Charge Adjustments: NOT a One-Size-Fits-All Solution By Ben Lipscomb, P.E.COMMERCIALPart1: The Evidence Against Charge AdjustmentOne example of the indirect EM&V processes often used to estimate RCA savings.MAY 2018 21HVACTODAY.COMRCA faults produces. A couple of con-clusions within the study itself do a great job summing up the results:1. “Only units with egregious charge offsets and non-RCA faults are expect-ed to be significantly impacted by ad-justing the charge to factory levels.” 2. “Addressing other non-RCA faults appears to be more beneficial than ad-dressing the charge offset fault itself.”One final point to consider is that this study only partially examined the uncertainty of the RCA measure. It didn’t consider the uncertainty of lab instrumentation, manufacturing variability, or performance respons-es to varying outdoor and indoor en-vironmental conditions. It also didn’t consider persistence of the RCA ben-efits, uncertainty in the simulations used to project energy savings, or the relative uncertainties of the various EM&V methods used for RCA. If you consider the additional uncer-tainties inherent in this chain of de-pendencies, it’s easy to see why EM&V results have been all over the place.SHOULD RCA BE AN ENERGY EFFICIENCY MEASURE?With these conclusions in hand, let’s consider whether RCA should contin-ue as a utility energy efficiency (EE) program measure. The first thing to think about is what percentage of systems out there are operating with egregious charge deficiencies. In one study2 of 4,168 air con-ditioners that received refrigerant charge diagnostics and adjustments, approximately 18% received a charge addition of 20% or higher. With roughly 100 million residential and small commercial HVAC units in the United States, if significant improve-ments from RCA could be achieved on 18% of those it would still be very beneficial. Note, however, that 18% received upward adjustments of 20% or higher. Did they need the adjustments in the first place? Did the adjustments pro-duce a benefit?PROGRAM DESIGN FLAWSRCA programs typically pay out an incentive for making charge adjust-ments, which are assumed to pro-duce savings. Some programs also pay a smaller incentive for diagnos-tics, which don’t produce savings directly, but in theory should lead to contractors finding and fixing more charge deficiencies.What happens in practice is that some less scrupulous contractors make as many adjustments as they can, whether they are truly beneficial or not. Why? Because the economics of the program drive them to adjust. Once you’re on the roof or in the home and have the gauges on, it’s easy to add or remove an ounce or two of refrigerant and claim the larger incentive. Some programs leave the charge diagnostics entirely to the contrac-tor, requiring them to decide whether to add or remove charge, potentially based only on limited training and un-derstanding of the refrigeration cycle. Verification on these programs typ-ically happens only after the fact, so if the system is running alright after the RCA measure is claimed, there’s no repercussion to the contractor for in-correctly interpreting a charge fault or making an adjustment. Refrigeration accuracies and assumptions in this process that it’s difficult or impos-sible to even put a number on the overall uncertainty of RCA program savings. Nonetheless, a recent study conducted in California examines several aspects of these uncertain-ties and provides a starting point for understanding them. The California Public Utilities Commission Study of Deemed HVAC Measures Uncertainty Year 3 Report (HVAC 4)1 strives to achieve a deeper understanding of the energy savings uncertainty of three types of HVAC measures, including RCA. The find-ings show that only correcting the charge on a highly undercharged sys-tem produces a high enough improve-ment in cooling efficiency or capacity to overcome the associated uncertain-ty around the improvements. In other words, the energy sav-ings benefits of doing RCA by itself are questionable except in the case of a highly undercharged system. Furthermore, addressing an over-charged system is likely to produce a negative benefit, with most scenar-ios showing a decrease in efficiency and capacity. The HVAC4 study also looks at the uncertainty of RCA when non-RCA faults such as economizer failures are addressed, and the findings lend even less credibility to the idea that RCA itself produces any measurable ben-efit. In fact, any RCA benefits realized after addressing other faults were overshadowed by the uncertainty of the benefit. Overall benefits produced by ad-dressing non-RCA faults, in addition to RCA faults, can be traced primari-ly to the benefit that addressing non-22 MAY 2018HIGH PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAYcycle diagnostics are complex, and many different types of issues ex-ist that can easily confuse a tech-nician, leading to frequent misdi-agnoses and unnecessary charge adjustments. There’s no question that proper charge is critical for system perfor-mance, reliability, and efficiency. However, the evidence is over-whelmingly against the notion that running around doing charge- adjustments in a mass-market utility program produces cost- effective energy savings. In the next installment of this two-part series we’ll look at how charge diagnostics and adjustment can be responsibly incorporated into the Performance-Based Con-tractor’s arsenal of skills as part of a systematic approach to improv-ing performance. 1 ncilink.com/HVAC42 Mowris et al, 2004, Field Measurements of Air Conditioners with and without TXVs. ncilink.com/aceee 3 Yuill et al, 2014, Evaluating Fault Detection and Diagnostic Tools with Simulations of Multiple Vapor Compres-sion Systems. ncilink.com/purdue 4 Mowris, 2012, Laboratory Measure-ments and Diagnostics of Residential HVAC Installation and Maintenance Faults. ncilink.com/mowrisCOMMERCIALIs More Data the Answer?Some programs prescribe a specific diagnostic approach, or even require a com-puterized refrigerant manifold with embedded fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) to collect data and identify issues. What if by using FDD, a program could be developed to effectively target only cases of egregious undercharge, therefore providing a high likelihood that significant measurable savings materialize? There are several major issues with this idea summarized below. Symptoms of highly undercharged systems are more likely to be noticed by occupants in the form of low cooling capacity causing comfort issues or high utility bills. Therefore, they are also more likely to get fixed outside the influence of a utility program. This diminishes the amount of savings attributable to the program, and/or shortens the measure life that can reasonably be claimed. There’s a serious environmental issue with incentivizing charge adjustments on systems with very low charge. A very low charge indicates a significant leak in a system that is designed to operate as a sealed system. If refrigerant is merely added to the system, it will continue to leak, making this a temporary fix at best. Worse than that, the leak vents refrigerant into the atmosphere. The most common refrigerants in use in residential and commercial air conditioners are R-22 and R-410a. R-22 is an ozone-depleting substance, and both R-22 and R-410a are greenhouse gasses with a Global Warming Potential thousands of times that of carbon dioxide. Properly dealing with a leak is an expensive and time-consuming process, the cost of which cannot be justified by energy savings alone. Leaks can be very difficult to find. It takes experience, and in some cases a significant amount of time. After finding the leak, the process for fixing it typically includes recovering all refrigerant in the system, then fixing the leak or replacing the leaking component (e.g. evaporator, condenser, compressor, etc.). The system then needs o be pressurized with nitrogen and/or drawing a vacuum to test for leaks and eliminate moisture. Then finally re-charging the system. This whole process typically takes from one half to one full day.Current FDD approaches produce flawed diagnostics. A 2014 Purdue Univer-sity study3 evaluated the effectiveness of three FDD approaches and found that all three produced false alarms greater than 25% of the time and misdiagnoses in more than 30% of cases. False alarms lead technicians to take action when none is necessary, wasting re-sources and potentially leading to negative impacts on system performance. Misdi-agnosis can lead a technician to take the wrong action in trying to correct the fault. The use of refrigeration gauges requires tapping into an otherwise sealed system. Each time gauges are placed on the equipment, there is a risk of contam-ination and a small amount of refrigerant loss. Even small amounts of contamination can cause a major loss in efficiency. Lab studies4 show that only 0.3% nitrogen (representing air in the system) reduces efficiency by 18% for non-TXV systems and 13% for TXV systems.Ben Lipscomb is a registered Professional Engineer with over 14 years of experience in the HVAC industry in-cluding laboratory and field research, Design/Build contracting, and utility energy efficiency program design. He is National Comfort Institute’s engi-neering manager, and may be contacted at benl@ncihvac.com. MAY 2018 23HVACTODAY.COMPHOTO OF THE MONTH“No, this isn’t my first installation.” — Alan Fisher, FisherAir Heating and Air Conditioning Services, Brea, CAIt’s not everyday you see something that reminds you how many hacks are out there. From using crates as a base (and possible return?) to a wooden plenum, this installation screams performance, right? Aieeeeeeeee!Alan Fisher from FisherAir Heating is the May 2018 winner of our Photo-of-the-Month contest (in the What the Heck category), as voted on by the subscribers to High Performance HVAC Today magazine and visitors to the website. He will receive a $50 gift card.You can too – submissions are always welcome. If you’d like to submit a photo for consideration in our Photo-of-the-Month contest, click here or copy and paste this URL into your browser: ncilink.com/POMSubmit. Then fill out the information as requested.THE JUNE CONTEST OPENS ON MAY 14, 2018. That gives you plenty of time to submit something in any of our three categories: The Good , The Bad , WTH (What the heck).24 MAY 2018HIGH PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAYmit seat ($695 value), a print month-ly subscription to High Performance HVAC Today, and more than $2,700 in business building boot camps!SO WHAT’S INCLUDED IN MY ALLIANCE MEMBERSHIP? Alliance members get both NCI’s Learning Excellence Premium Mem-bership package and EGIA’s Premium Membership package. Each member-ship package is packed with valuable money-saving and money-making benefits. Be sure to click on the links above to see the dozens of member-ship benefits.Benefits include live and online technical training, coaching. It also includes support, coupled with live and online training, coaching and support in business leadership, management, operations, customer service, sales, and marketing. Click here for more detailed informa-tion on Alliance member benefits.HOW DO I JOIN THE ALLIANCE?Joining is easy. HVAC contractors can can call Member Services at 800-633-7058. Just ask for Nick! Click Here, for more info, or shoot Nick an email: Nickg@ncihvac.com. We will walk through the benefits of the Alliance, and what you get with your membership in EGIA and NCI. The next step is to complete our simple member-ship application and we’ll get you start-ed right away!*EGIA is an 85-year-old non-profit mem-bership organization dedicated to ad-vancing energy efficiency and renewable energy solutions through the home im-provement and renewable energy indus-tries. The organization works closely with utility companies and the government on their energy-efficiency and renewable en-ergy programs and manages one of the largest energy-efficiency financing pro-grams in the country. EGIA also provides training, coaching, and support for hundreds of contractor members.This March, National Comfort Insti-tute (NCI) announced a new partner-ship with the Electric and Gas Industries Association* (EGIA), and the creation of a new High-Performance HVAC Alliance for HVAC contractor members of both EGIA and NCI.By partnering under the Alliance um-brella, NCI and EGIA together deliver un-paralleled value to HVAC contractors. Al-liance contractors are members of North America’s most comprehensive HVAC in-dustry organization. It provides the full spectrum of technical and non-technical training, support, and best practices for every aspect and role in your HVAC con-tracting business. If you currently participate in NCI training and membership and want to also grow and improve every aspect of your business, think about this: Upgrad-ing to High Performance HVAC Alliance membership makes complete sense and will pay for itself many times over, year after year.WHAT DO MEMBERS GET?By upgrading to Alliance membership you’ll receive the highest level of bene-fits from both organizations -- at deeply discounted membership dues. This saves you $250/month compared to separate dues in each organization!In addition, Alliance members get a rebate of $350/month in training funds that can be used towards most NCI and EGIA training. Training funds never ex-pire and can also be used towards 50% off any non-resale purchases. This in-cludes tools, instruments, and support materials bought through NCI. Alliance Members also get exclu-sive bonuses adding up to more than $3,500 each year, including a free Sum-NCI MEMBER UPDATEHIGH-PERFORMANCE HVAC ALLIANCE NOW OPEN TO NCI MEMBERSEGIA MEMBER BENEFITS• GEOSmart Customer Financing• Snapshot Survey – Industry Research• Contractor Marketplace – Discounts and Rebates• Contractor University: • “Contractor Coffee Club” Podcasts • “Ask the Experts” Conference Calls • “Cracking the Code” Weekly Show Webinars • Online Classes • Best Practices Resource Library• Complimentary EPIC2018 Conference Registration• Two Free Workshop Registrations per Live Event and Discounts for additional attendeesNCI MEMBER BENEFITS• Unlimited Toll-Free Support• High Performance Talk – Online Member Forum• Premium Find A Contractor Listing• Unlimited Online University Training and Webinars for all Employees• Mobile-Friendly Online Technical Tools Technical Forms & Procedures and Marketing Support Materials• Expansive Online Article Library• Earn 15% NCI Bucks on NCI Training• Best Discounts on Live Training and Conferences• Best Industry Pricing on NCI Online• ComfortMaxx Verify™ – Full Testing Software with AirMaxx™ Mobile App ($200/month Value)• Maximum TIPP Rewards with all Partners• $4,200/year in NCI Bucks towards Training!BONUS Alliance Member Benefits!• Free 3-Day EGIA Business Success Bootcamp ($895 Value)• 70% OFF 5-Day EGIA Success Week Bootcamp – (Normally $2,499) Just $699!• Free Print Subscription to High Performance HVAC Today magazine ($72/year value)• One Paid NCI Summit Conference Registration ($695 Value)MAY 2018 25HVACTODAY.COMAdvertiser IndexHIGH PERFORMANCEHVAC TODAY TMAD INDEXArzel Zoning Technology, Inc. | www.ArzelZoning.com .........................................................13High Performance HVAC Alliance | www.ncilink.com/HPhvac ..............................................2High Performance HVAC Today Magazine | HVACToday.com ..............................................25Jackson Systems | www.JacksonSystems.com.............................................................................5R.E. Michel Company, Inc. | www.REMichel.com .........................................................................6The New Flat Rate | www.thenewflatrate.com ............................................................................4To Subscribe to High-Performance HVAC Today:ONLINE: Visit HVACToday.com/subscribe for a FREE digital subscription.PRINT: 1 year/$72; single copy $7. Canada: 1 year/$92; single copy $9. Payable in advance with U.S. funds. Prepaid subscriptions may be sent to: High-Performance HVAC Today, PO Box 147, Avon Lake, OH 44012. Phone: 440-949-1850; toll free 800-633-7058; FAX 440-949-1851, or visit HVACToday.com/subscribe.PublisherDominick GuarinoEditor-in-ChiefMike WeilArt DirectorConnie ConklinOnline Development DirectorBrian RosemanSales ManagerDave KenneyCirculation ManagerAndrea Begany- GarsedEditorial AssistantMarge SmithEmail us at contactus@hvactoday.com with your comments and questions.26 MAY 2018HIGH PERFORMANCE HVAC TODAYAt ABC Heating and Air, before we install a new furnace or air conditioner, our NCI air-flow-certified technicians test your existing system to identify comfort issues and energy waste. We then offer solutions that can be in-cluded with your new installation. Once we’re done, we test again to make sure your system is operating at peak performance."Short message:"Our NCI certified technicians fully test every new system we install to help insure you get the maximum comfort and energy efficiency."POORLY PERFORMING SYSTEMS"Have you replaced your furnace or central air recently? Are you getting the comfort and energy efficiency you paid for? We are trained and certified to test your entire comfort system to make sure it’s operating at peak performance.""Tired of uncomfortable rooms, high utility bills, or poor indoor air quality? Our techni-cians are NCI trained and certified to fully test your system and help solve these typical home comfort problems once and for all."GREAT IMAGES COMPLETE THE PICTURE As the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. It’s important to balance words with images to help convey your mes-sage. You might include before and after pic-tures, or images of happy, comfortable fam-ilies. Try to resist pictures of trucks and equipment. To differentiate your company, you can’t look like everyone else.These are just a few approaches to how you can market your high performance HVAC services.Let us know if you have others you'd like to share. W e often get asked by our readers, “how should we market what we do differently as a high perfor-mance contractor?” Below you’ll find some sample messages that can be used on your website, social media, blogs, email marketing, and of course, traditional print marketing. I've broken the messaging into three categories based on the type of lead you are trying to generate:1. Service and Maintenance2. Replacement Sales3. Solutions to Poorly Performing SystemsBe sure to customize wording to fit your com-pany offerings, the specific marketing vehicle, and what makes you different.SERVICE AND MAINTENANCE"Our 21-point Performance Tune-Ups include certified airflow testing to help insure your home comfort system is operating at peak perfor-mance. This will improve comfort, reduce ener-gy costs, and extend equipment life.""We provide certified, professional perfor-mance testing on every service or maintenance visit. Our technicians will give you a detailed, computerized report on the health and perfor-mance of your system, along with suggested improvements."REPLACEMENT SYSTEM MARKETINGHere's a longer message for websites and blogs:"Thinking of replacing your old worn out fur-nace or central air system? According to the National Comfort Institute, every day thou-sands of homeowners pay top dollar for high efficiency equipment only to be disappointed by the lack of utility bill savings, and the same comfort problems they’ve lived with for years. Unfortunately, these problems typically cannot be solved by just installing new equipment. Dominick Guarino is publisher of HVAC Today magazine and CEO of National Comfort Institute, Inc. He can be reached at domg@ncihvac.com ONE MORE THING...By Dominick GuarinoMarket Your High-Performance DifferenceNext >