NFRC Summer Meeting Takes Place This Week in Chicago
On Monday afternoon a forum to discuss NFRC's acceptance of insulating glass (IG) certification agencies took place. While there were lengthy discussions over the proposed language, the group agreed to table any decision until reviewing previously agreed upon language that will be submitted to the Certification Policy Committee for consideration.
Subcommittees of the Research and Technology Committee met Tuesday morning, including the Optical Properties subcommittee, chaired by Sheila Gore with Enermodal Engineering. Members discussed a number of ballots for revising NFRC 300/301 and NFRC 302/303/304 as part of the 2009 document cycle.
Regarding the NFRC 300 ballot, some members expressed concerns about substitution of the glazing data set currently being used as there are some differences between the way that American (ASTM) standards detail requirements compared to ISO. There was discussion about moving to an international (ISO) procedure, which would result in slightly different optical and thermal product performance that manufacturers and fabricators publish for their glass product constructions. According to Greg Carney, technical director for the Glass Association of North America, this would be a major change that would require considerable discussion with the manufacturers/fabricators to debate the merits and consider the ramifications.
There was also a brief discussion regarding a reference to diffused products (such as patterned glass) in the 301 document.
"Diffusing products are important to this organization and we need some way to evaluate [them], especially as NFRC moves toward commercial buildings," said Mike Rubin with LBNL. "It's something we need to pay attention to … they are a bit difficult to categorize … but are an important issue."
The documents will return to task group for further review and re-balloting.
A number of technical committee subcommittees met yesterday afternoon where several ballot issues were handled that will now move forward to committee level.
During the air leakage subcommittee meeting, chaired by Mike Thoman from Architectural Testing Inc., members discussed an action item from the spring board meeting in Nashville (CLICK HERE for related story). Since determining air leakage performance is already covered by other industry programs, the subcommittee has been discussing whether NFRC 400-2004 should be removed from the 2009 documents. The group decided NFRC 400 should remain in the 2009 documents, but would heavily reference the American Architectural Manufacturers Association (AAMA) 101 document in the technical specification.
During the U-factor subcommittee meting the language being developed for the NFRC 100 section for rating dynamic attachments for swinging doors was again debated, much as it was before during the spring meeting in Nashville (see related article link above). One ballot negative disapproved, saying the rating should be for a general class of products and not a specific single-class product. The motion to find the negative persuasive, however, failed, and the ballot will return to task group for further work.
The NFRC's board meeting, which takes place today, will conclude the Summer Meeting.
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