# Presentation: 720236

## DOE’s Commercial Building Proposals for the 2004/2005 Code Change Cycle

- Mark Halverson

## DOE’s Commercial Strategy

- Submit proposals that complement the DOE’s Residential IECC Code Change (RICC)
- Submit proposals that continue to harmonize Chapter 7 (ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2001) and Chapter 8 of the IECC

**Notes:**
DOE’s strategies are two-fold:  to submit those proposals necessary to complement the RICC and to submit proposals that address loopholes in the IECC due to the existence of two commercial chapters.  The RICC complementary strategy is intended solely to provide a complete residential and commercial package of requirements that utilize the new climate zones developed for the RICC.  The Chapter 7/Chapter 8 strategy is the continuation of a long-term effort by DOE and others to continually improve Chapter 8 and close loopholes in the IECC.  (This strategy is coupled with a strategy to continually push ASHRAE to make their Standard more usable in the codes world.)  

## Complementing the RICC

**Complementing the RICC**

- Proposal to map existing Chapter 8 envelope requirements into the new climate zones used in the RICC
- Proposal to map existing Chapter 8 economizer requirements into the new climate zones used in the RICC

**Notes:**
Two proposals were submitted to ICC.  One deals with the envelope requirements and the other with economizer requirements.  These are the only two portions of Chapter 8 of the IECC that are climate dependent and thus were the only two portions of Chapter 8 that need to be changed if the RICC (and its’ new climate zones) is adopted.  (Actually, these portions need to be changed ONLY if the ICC wants to have common climate zones used for both residential and commercial occupancies.  DOE feels that this is a good thing from an implementation and deployment standpoint and thus has submitted these proposals.)

While the intent of these two proposals was to maintain the stringency of the IECC, the fact that DOE is proposing new climates zones with larger geographical coverage means that inevitably some new zones combine old zones with both more and less stringent requirements.  DOE developed the mapping used in these zones in such a way that if a new zone contained cities from several old zones AND most of the cities were in one old zone, then the requirements for the new zone was taken from the single old zone that contained most of the cities, thus ensuring that most of the cities in the new zone would see the same requirements under both the existing and proposed codes.  If, however, there was no clear cut “dominant old zone”, then the most suitable set of requirements was used.  Bearing in mind that DOE’s interest is energy efficiency, DOE would tend to error on the side of energy efficiency.  However, DOE did not pick the most stringent of the available old zones.  

## Harmonizing Chapters 7 and 8

- Combine Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 by making the ASHRAE Standard the reference standard for Chapter 8
- Adding requirements for pools from Chapter 7 to Chapter 8

## More Information

- _[http://www.energycodes.gov/](http://www.energycodes.gov/)_
- Select “Latest Proposed Code Changes”
- _[http://www.energycodes.gov/implement/doe_2004_proposals.stm](http://www.energycodes.gov/implement/doe_2004_proposals.stm)_
- Full URL

**Notes:**
For more information, you can find complete copies of DOE code change proposals on the web at DOE’s energy codes website.  The ICC Monograph is also now available at www.iccsafe.org.