TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

HERITAGE REPORTING CORPORATION

Official Reporters

1220 L Street, N.W., Suite 206

Washington, D.C. 20005-4018

(202) 628-4888

contracts@hrccourtreporters.com

IN THE MATTER OF: )

 )

TEST PROCEDURES FOR )

RESIDENTIAL AND CERTAIN )

COMMERCIAL WATER HEATERS )

CONVERSION FACTORS )

RULEMAKING MEETING )

Pages: 1 through 173

Place: Washington, D.C.

Date: May 28, 2015
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BEFORE THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

OFFICE OF ENERGY EFFICIENCY & RELIABLE ENERGY

IN THE MATTER OF: )

 )

TEST PROCEDURES FOR )

RESIDENTIAL AND CERTAIN )

COMMERCIAL WATER HEATERS )

CONVERSION FACTORS )

RULEMAKING MEETING )

7th Floor, Room 7140

OHA Conference Room

Department of Energy

950 L'Enfant Plaza

Washington, D.C.

Thursday,

May 28, 2015

The parties met, pursuant to the notice, at 

10:04 a.m.

PARTICIPANTS:

Department of Energy:

ASHLEY ARMSTRONG

ERIC STAS

LAURA BARHYDT

Industry:

CHARLES W. ADAMS

A.O. Smith Corporation

ADAM DARLINGTON

Navigant Consulting, Inc.

MISTY GUARD

Bradley Corporation

NATE KOGLER

Bradley Corporation
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PARTICIPANTS (Cont'd)

Industry: (Cont'd)

WILLIAM M. HEALY

U.S. Department of Commerce

National Institute of Standards and Technology

ALEKSANDR KOVALENKO

HTP, Inc.

KAREN MEYERS

Rheem Manufacturing Company

RUSSELL PATE

Rheem Manufacturing Company

STEVE ROSENSTOCK

Edison Electric Institute

AMY SHEPHERD

Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute

FRANK STANONIK

Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute

CHARLIE STEPHENS

Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance

JAMES YORK

Rinnai America Corporation

HARVEY SACHS

American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy

FRANK MYERS

PVI Industries, LLC

JOSEPH BOROS

Rheem Water Heating

CAROLINE DAVIDSON-HOOD

Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute
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PARTICIPANTS (Cont'd)

Industry: (Cont'd)

THOMAS McNUTT

Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute

AYKUT YILMAZ

Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute

R. BRUCE CARNEVALE

Bradford White Corporation

MARK TAYLOR

Bradford White Corporation

CHAD SANBORN

Bradford White Corporation

ADAM S. OLSEN

Sconset Strategies, LLC on behalf of

Bradford White Corporation

JAMES PHILLIPS

Navigant

HAMPTON NEWSOME

U.S. Federal Trade Commission

JIM LUTZ (Via Telephone)

Also Present:

DOUG BROOKMAN

Public Solutions, Inc.
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1 P R O C E E D I N G S

2 (10:04 a.m.)

3 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Let's start. Good 

4 morning, everyone. Welcome.

5 MALE VOICE: Good morning.

6 MR. BROOKMAN: This is the public hearing on 

7 conversion factor for consumer and commercial water 

8 heaters. Today is May 28, 2015, here in a building 

9 adjacent to Forrestal Building in Washington, D.C. 

10 Glad to see you here this morning. Would you like to 

11 make welcoming remarks?

12 MS. ARMSTRONG: Sure. Hi.

13 MR. BROOKMAN: We're going to start with 

14 welcoming remarks from Ashley Armstrong as she finds a 

15 microphone to do that.

16 MS. ARMSTRONG: I'm trying to figure out how 

17 to work this thing. I'm Ashley for those that don't 

18 know me. I'm working on it. I'm making my way there.

19 So I'd just like to welcome everyone to the 

20 public meeting, apparently the really popular public 

21 meeting, for the conversion factor rule. We put 

22 together some slides that are just high-level summary 

23 slides of our proposed rule, but really this public 

24 meeting is all about you guys. You guys requested it, 

25 so we're here to listen to anything that you guys want 
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1 to bring to our attention, any data, any information 

2 you want to share, any concerns to help inform our 

3 next steps of the rulemaking. So we do appreciate 

4 that all of you traveled here especially on such short 

5 notice, and we look forward to such a great discussion 

6 today.

7 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you. Let's start with 

8 introductions as we always do. I'll start to my 

9 immediate left, and I think these microphones, which 

10 we've spread across this conference table and I think 

11 in the back there we're not going to be able to do so 

12 well.

13 FEMALE VOICE: Okay. I'll --

14 MR. BROOKMAN: We'll see what we do.

15 FEMALE VOICE: Yeah. Should we put the 

16 yellers in the back?

17 MR. BROOKMAN: Start right here with Steve.

18 Mr. ROSENSTOCK: Steve Rosenstock, Edison 

19 Electric Institute.

20 MR. STANONIK: Frank Stanonik, Air21 Conditioning, Heating, Refrigeration Institute.

22 MR. STEPHENS: Charlie Stephens, Northwest 

23 Energy Efficiency Alliance.

24 MR. YORK: James York, Rinnai American 

25 Corporation.
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1 MR. BOROS: Joe Boros with Rheem 

2 Manufacturing Company.

3 MR. MYERS: Frank Myers, PVI Industries.

4 MR. SACHS: Harvey Sachs, American Council 

5 for an Energy Efficient Economy.

6 MR. PATE: Russell Pate, Rheem Manufacturing 

7 Company.

8 MS. MEYERS: Karen Meyers, Rheem.

9 MR. KOVALENKO: Alex Kovalenko, HTP.

10 MR. ADAMS: Charlie Adams, A.O. Smith 

11 Corporation.

12 MR. STAS: Eric Stas, DOE.

13 MS. BARHYDT: Laura Barhydt, DOE.

14 MS. ARMSTRONG: Ashley Armstrong, DOE.

15 MR. BROOKMAN: Let's go over here, please.

16 MR. PHILLIPS: James Phillips, Navigant.

17 MR. DARLINGTON: Adam Darlington, Navigant.

18 MR. HEALY: Bill Healy, NIST.

19 MS. DAVIDSON-HOOD: Caroline Davidson-Hood, 

20 AHRI.

21 MS. SHEPHERD: Amy Shepherd, AHRI.

22 MR. CARNEVALE: Bruce Carnevale, Bradford 

23 White Corporation.

24 MR. TAYLOR: Mark Taylor, Bradford White 

25 Corporation.
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1 MR. SANBORN: Chad Sanborn, Bradford White 

2 Corporation.

3 MR. OLSEN: Adam Olsen, Bradford White.

4 MR. YILMAZ: Aykut Yilmaz, AHRI.

5 MR. BROOKMAN: Great. Thanks to all of you. 

6 Nice to see you here this morning. Thanks for being 

7 here.

8 All of you received a packet of information 

9 I hope, and if you look at page 7 of this packet, 

10 you'll see a truncated meeting agenda. We're going to 

11 talk first about regulatory history and then move from 

12 there to a rulemaking overview, move from there to a 

13 description of issues addressed in the NOPR, and then 

14 closing remarks.

15 Many of you I think are familiar with the 

16 general format for these meetings. This packet helps 

17 to guide the discussion, although, as Ashley said, we 

18 hope to elicit a lot of comment wherever it fits best 

19 in the content provided here to hear from all of you 

20 today.

21 I'd ask for your consideration of a few 

22 simple ground rules. If you'd speak one at a time, 

23 say your name for the record each time you speak. 

24 There will be a complete transcript of this meeting 

25 made available. If you could be concise to share the 
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1 air time, keep the focus here. If you haven't turned 

2 your cell phones on silent mode, please do so.

3 And webinar participants, we welcome you. 

4 The Department of Energy is trying to make these 

5 meetings accessible to all. Please keep your phone on 

6 mute and raise your hand to be recognized to speak and 

7 then we'll try and see if we can work you into the 

8 conversation here in the room.

9 So far as we know, the audio and everything 

10 is working okay, right?

11 THE COURT REPORTER: Yes, sir. I hear you 

12 all.

13 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Great. What about the 

14 back row?

15 THE COURT REPORTER: They're very faint.

16 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. We'll see what we can 

17 do about that.

18 THE COURT REPORTER: I have a mic at the 

19 podium, so if they -- I mean, I know it's 

20 inconvenient, but if you wouldn't mind --

21 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay.

22 THE COURT REPORTER: -- going there, that 

23 would be great.

24 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. So do you want to 

25 start with the content?
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1 MS. ARMSTRONG: Sure. So just to go through 

2 a couple of these, many of you have been to our public 

3 meetings before, but kind of how this works, we're 

4 here today to talk about the crosswalk and the 

5 proposed conversions that we had in our notice of 

6 proposed rulemaking. We're here to seek your feedback 

7 and obviously discuss next steps. You may see issues 

8 boxes throughout. Some of them correspond to those 

9 that you will see in the NOPR itself. Obviously we 

10 welcome comments on any of it, so you shouldn't feel 

11 like you need to just comment on those specific items. 

12 The comment period closes on June 15, after we 

13 already extended it once.

14 So at this time we're going to open it up in 

15 case certain people want to make opening remarks 

16 before we start into our content, or if they don't we 

17 can jump right in. Up to you guys.

18 MR. BROOKMAN: Frank Stanonik?

19 MR. STANONIK: Frank Stanonik, AHRI. Yeah. 

20 Since this meeting is maybe a little bit different 

21 than normal ones, we actually kind of prepared 

22 actually quite extensive opening remarks that kind of 

23 try to give an overview of what we see as in fact why 

24 we asked for the meeting and major issues. I've 

25 actually got it as a PowerPoint.
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1 MS. ARMSTRONG: Okay.

2 MR. STANONIK: If you want, we can load it 

3 onto the computer --

4 MS. ARMSTRONG: Help, please.

5 MR. STANONIK: -- and I can try and go 

6 through it quickly. Not wanting to hijack the 

7 meeting, we're going to raise a number of issues and 

8 maybe --

9 MS. ARMSTRONG: Do you want to go stand up 

10 there?

11 MR. STANONIK: I can stand up there, yeah.

12 MS. ARMSTRONG: Or you can sit there, 

13 whatever you want, but this is going to be how you --

14 MR. STANONIK: Okay. Well, let me -- I'll 

15 do it sitting down.

16 MS. ARMSTRONG: Frank, do you want to go 

17 through their presentation first and then do yours

18 or --

19 MR. STANONIK: Well, I was thinking we'd go 

20 through ours and then as we -- you know, we're going 

21 to identify questions and issues, and I'm sure as you 

22 go through yours we can then address them. But I 

23 think as kind of an opening remark I'd rather -- and 

24 hopefully not take up too much time, but just kind of 

25 give you an overview.
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1 MR. BROOKMAN: If you've got a significant 

2 number of comments, let's hear them now.

3 MR. STANONIK: Okay.

4 MR. BROOKMAN: Yeah.

5 MR. SACHS: Mr. Facilitator, this is Harvey 

6 Sachs. I yield our time.

7 (Laughter.)

8 MR. BROOKMAN: I'm going to remember that, 

9 Harvey.

10 MR. STANONIK: Ignore any files that say 

11 FIFA bribes.

12 (Laughter.)

13 MS. ARMSTRONG: Frank.

14 MR. STANONIK: It should be the very last 

15 one on the list there. No. It is -- I'm sorry -- DOE 

16 Con Factor Notes For Meeting, halfway up.

17 MS. ARMSTRONG: Halfway up.

18 MR. STANONIK: Right there.

19 MS. ARMSTRONG: Got it.

20 MR. SACHS: Frank, this is Harvey. Will 

21 these be distributed to the group?

22 MR. STANONIK: Actually, since I don't want 

23 to take them back, anybody who wants can have a 

24 printed copy.

25 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yeah. They'll go in the 
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1 docket.

2 MR. STANONIK: All right. So like I say,

3 I'll just try and go through the issues and recognize 

4 that as we ask questions I will agree that we can 

5 discuss them as they come up later. Otherwise we'll 

6 mess up your agenda terribly.

7 All right. So just kind of overall issues, 

8 and some of you may not be aware, since the NOPR came 

9 out and actually before we have been running tests in 

10 our certification program and our members have been 

11 running tests. So we did send some data in to DOE on 

12 May 14 I believe it is, so some of this is also going 

13 to be reflecting what we believe we're seeing in the 

14 data.

15 So basically I'll tell you our overall 

16 concerns are that, all right, so the UEF conversion 

17 allows most current models to comply with what are 

18 proposed as the UEF minimums, but when we look at the 

19 measured values we get, some of those measured values 

20 don't align with the converted values and would 

21 suggest the model is not going to -- that the model 

22 test results in the minimum are not let's say in 

23 agreement and so potentially the model becomes 

24 noncompliant.

25 And we see in our results at least that for 
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1 some of the minimums in fact it is not a neutral no 

2 change in the standard, and two examples of that in 

3 products that are fairly significant in the market, 

4 for almost all of the electric resistance storage 

5 water heaters, any draw pattern, the measured UEF 

6 seems to be coming out consistently lower than what 

7 the conversion factor equation says it should be.

8 And the consequence of that is that the 

9 converted standard from our perspective now is more 

10 stringent than the current standard. That's for 

11 residential electric resistance. In the case of 

12 residential gas, the models -- and this actually goes 

13 the other way in the case the models did.

14 In the high usage bin, we're seeing that a 

15 majority of the results, the measured UEF is higher 

16 than the converted UEF, and in this case they would be 

17 above what is the minimum standard, so actually in 

18 that case we're concerned. I mean, obviously the 

19 whole idea is the conversion is supposed to be 

20 neutral. We're concerned it's actually a relaxation 

21 of the standard when you apply it to high usage gas 

22 products.

23 MR. STEPHENS: Frank, I have a question --

24 MR. STANONIK: Yes?

25 MR. STEPHENS: -- about that. This is 
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1 Charlie Stephens. Are the three-quarters of gas 

2 storage models that have UEF greater, are they ones 

3 that say most of them meet the standard now or 

4 minimally meet the EF standard now, or are they all 

5 exceeded anyway?

6 MR. STANONIK: Well, it's a mixed bag.

7 MR. STEPHENS: Okay.

8 MR. STANONIK: It's a mixed bag. I mean, 

9 first of all, we were only testing, with very rare 

10 exception, we were only testing models that complied 

11 with the standard that went into effect in April.

12 MR. STEPHENS: Close to a minimum compliance 

13 or --

14 MR. STANONIK: Well, no. We've got some 

15 over. We've got some over. And, Charlie, at the back 

16 you actually will have, it's probably not going to 

17 show up very well, but you have our table of results.

18 MR. STEPHENS: Oh, okay.

19 MR. STANONIK: So, you know, that's a 

20 majority of our tested ones.

21 MR. STEPHENS: Okay.

22 MR. STANONIK: So then again this is, you 

23 know, just trying to really lay it out here. Our 

24 concern is the NOPR really is not making the 

25 transition from EF to UEF possible. We're seeing 
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1 distinct differences between the EF and converted UEF 

2 values that really are not let's say consistent where, 

3 you know, you could just see the pattern, if you will.

4 And then the trend seems to demonstrate that 

5 there's a marked shift from the UEF converted 

6 calculation, if you will, to the UEF tested value for 

7 several types of water heaters. And then the last 

8 point here is that, again, you know, as it's very 

9 clear in the statute, DOE is obliged to determine the 

10 new standard that reflects the new test procedure and 

11 no change in stringency.

12 As we see this, the NOPR is not doing that. 

13 We think in some cases, as I pointed out, the 

14 proposed converted standard may be more stringent. In 

15 one example, it's actually less stringent. So, again, 

16 this is just kind of laying out some of the issues 

17 we've seen in the DOE analysis.

18 One of the things is equation for Q. That's 

19 the estimated total consumption of a water heater. It 

20 shows up on two pages, and I'm pretty sure it was 

21 derived from the WHAM work, but in that equation the 

22 standby loss is calculated as if it occurred for 24 

23 hours, and when you're talking about fossil fuel 

24 products you've got to factor out the amount of burner 

25 on time. When the burner is on, the loss that 
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1 otherwise would occur through the flue tubes and out 

2 when the burner is on, the transfer is going the other 

3 way, so that period of time that potential surface of 

4 loss is in effect the opposite. It's really the heat 

5 exchanger. So, you know, that will change some of the 

6 derived results I think.

7 MR. SACHS: Frank?

8 MR. STANONIK: Yes?

9 MR. SACHS: Excuse me. This is Harvey. As 

10 we go through, can you give us a sense of things like 

11 whether the variances are normal or biased in one 

12 direction and sort of the little things like this? 

13 Are these factors 1 percent or 10 percent, that 

14 estimate of which things are big and which aren't?

15 MR. STANONIK: At this point I couldn't give 

16 you the magnitude, but that is going to overestimate 

17 the consumption.

18 MR. SACHS: Okay. Thank you.

19 MR. STANONIK: Yeah. Probably, probably for 

20 a smaller tank size, a lower input product, the effect 

21 is going to be greater. You could have a burner on 

22 time that would approach two hours. On let's say a 

23 residential duty commercial product, your burner on 

24 time, probably an hour, maybe even a little bit less, 

25 so yeah.
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1 So then just again other questions. There's 

2 an analysis. You show the constants for all the A, B, 

3 C, D that are used in the, I think it's the WHAM 

4 calculation or one of the calculations, and there's 

5 really no explanation where those numbers came from 

6 and we just don't -- we've just got a question about 

7 that.

8 We don't think you need separate conversion 

9 factors for what has been described as standard and 

10 low NOx gas water heaters. You do need one for the 

11 ultra low NOx. It's a totally different burner, a

12 different design, but we really question whether we 

13 need this extra complication.

14 This is one that was let's just say we are

15 scratching our heads. In Table III.21, which is the 

16 information on the residential duty commercial water 

17 heaters that were evaluated or were tested in this 

18 analysis, three out of the seven don't fit the 

19 definition of residential duty water heater. They're 

20 inputs less than 75,000, and in fact none of them are 

21 tested for more than 80,000 and the volumes were 

22 generally I think 75 gallons or so, but the main thing 

23 is they actually in terms of their input and volume 

24 parameter would have fit as a plain old residential 

25 storage water heater, and yet they were tested for the 
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1 conversion factor for residential duty.

2 This is really a major one. We just don't 

3 think there's been enough models tested to reflect a 

4 cross-section of residential duty water heaters that 

5 are covered by this test procedure. We think there 

6 should have been some more short units tested. We 

7 think there's an issue that if you look at higher 

8 efficiency heat pumps the conversion really doesn't 

9 fit. We think there should have been more residential 

10 duty commercial gas products tested, including some 

11 with inputs up around 105,000, 100,000. And then we 

12 just think, you know, when you look at the gas 

13 products, there should have been maybe a better mix of 

14 input volume size and venting type, and that would 

15 really -- well, that's primarily storage, but maybe a 

16 little bit on the tankless instantaneous products.

17 We've also identified two products we think 

18 should have been addressed and weren't. One of our 

19 members has advised us they do have residential duty 

20 electric instantaneous water heaters that fit the 

21 definition in the test procedure and so they will need 

22 a conversion factor.

23 And then there is -- well, I guess I'll say 

24 there were. There were electric storage water heaters 

25 that had inputs less than 12 kW and had what I call a 
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1 180 F thermostat. In the old DOE test procedure, 

2 those products weren't tested because they had that 

3 high, high temperature thermostat, and yet under the 

4 current definition those actually now would be 

5 included as residential storage water heaters, 

6 electric storage water heaters, and they really 

7 weren't evaluated I think. And so maybe that's 

8 another issue is in the unit that we looked at would 

9 be to look at models in fact that do have a higher 

10 thermostat, although -- whatever.

11 And then just as a general question, well, 

12 basically, as we analyzed this, has DOE looked at the 

13 basic repeatability of the uniform efficiency 

14 descriptor test procedure? And, you know, I think 

15 that's useful information for all of us. I mean, 

16 we're doing the same thing. We're running a single 

17 test old EF procedure, new UEF procedure, but I think 

18 in terms of really trying to sort that out we need a 

19 better sense of what is the repeatability of the UED 

20 test procedure.

21 And then again in Table III.5 there is a 

22 determination of N, which is the number of -- I 

23 remember the number of times a tankless product 

24 actually heats up and cools down completely or it's 

25 the number of cycles. I forget which. But in any 
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1 case, we're concerned that in the current test 

2 procedure, if you have a product that is multi-firing, 

3 you run half the cycles at the low fire, and we don't 

4 think that that determination of N really factored 

5 that in, nor did it perhaps recognize that in some 

6 cases, if the design can't make it, you would run the 

7 flow rate at a lower than specified value because the 

8 unit can't hit the target. That may be less of an 

9 issue when the output is 125.

10 And then these will be admittedly probably 

11 repetitive for some people, but we think there's 

12 really big implementation issues, and the primary one 

13 is, as the NOPR notes, what's being proposed is that 

14 for certification reports filed after July 13, and 

15 I've inserted in there until May 1 because on May 1, 

16 2016, reports have to be filed for all models on the 

17 market at that time.

18 So only for new certification reports filed 

19 after July -- or I'm sorry. Any certification report 

20 filed between that period will include both EF and the 

21 UEF or the thermal efficiency and standby loss and UEF 

22 if it's a residential duty. And then it also 

23 indicates that there are no changes to the FTC energy 

24 guide label information at this time, and that won't 

25 change until FTC changes its regulations.
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1 So we're understanding that at the moment 

2 potentially on July 14 you would have a UED test 

3 procedure in effect, and the FTC energy guide label 

4 will still be based on information derived from the 

5 now old EF test procedure. And as we go through, 

6 hopefully I just want to just make sure we understand 

7 DOE's approach to that.

8 And then we really don't see how this 

9 rulemaking is going to be finalized by July 13, and so 

10 this raises questions about if it's not finalized by 

11 July 13 and a manufacturer wants to advertise his 

12 efficiency ratings in literature, his own product 

13 descriptions and whatever else, how will the 

14 manufacturer determine the UEF rating, which he will 

15 be obligated to display we believe?

16 And then likewise, without that conversion 

17 factor, how can the federal minimum standards be 

18 translated to a minimum UEF requirement, and then the 

19 last part of this is okay, so if a new model is 

20 introduced after mid-July and the standard in effect 

21 is still the EF standard, how are they going to 

22 certify that they comply with that standard if the 

23 operative test procedure is a UED test procedure on 

24 July 13?

25 And then my favorite one is grandfathering. 
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1 In a number of places in the NOPR DOE confirms their 

2 intent that products currently complying with the 

3 minimum efficiency standard will not fail to comply 

4 where the standard minimum conversion factor has been 

5 applied. In a number of these citations DOE talks 

6 about units complying with minimum standards, and so 

7 what is not clear to us anyhow is so I have a model 

8 that is complying today with the existing minimum 

9 standard that went into effect on April 15.

10 Are the units of that model manufactured 

11 after July 13 also considered to comply with the 

12 converted UEF standard? And that would be what we 

13 believe is classic grandfathering, as happened back in 

14 the 1990s. If the answer to that is no, we need to 

15 understand how DOE got to that conclusion because 

16 clearly we don't agree.

17 And then the other one which again matters 

18 significantly is in this analysis the converted. 

19 proposed converted formulas talk about using rated 

20 volume. We just really want to make sure what rated 

21 volume values were used in the analysis. Did they use 

22 the current name plate rated volume of 30, 40, 50 

23 gallons or whatever?

24 And if they didn't, it really needs to be 

25 redone because, as we've pointed out, if you use the 
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1 rated volume as defined in the UED test procedure and 

2 actually repeated in this NOPR, that change on a 

3 practical basis does increase the stringency of the 

4 current federal standards for some products and that's 

5 really not allowed by the law.

6 And then this gets to the point, you know, 

7 we've put in a petition to have DOE reconsider this. 

8 That was published. I know for a fact that the 

9 comments were overwhelmingly supportive of ours from 

10 many different stakeholders, and we need to know 

11 what's going on with that petition. We believe it 

12 needs to be resolved before this rule can be 

13 finalized.

14 And maybe at this point again I don't really 

15 want to -- I'm not intending to hijack the meeting 

16 here. We can maybe stop here and when we get into 

17 some of the test data we can cover this. So let me 

18 suggest that.

19 MR. BROOKMAN: How many more slides do you 

20 have?

21 MR. STANONIK: When we get to this --

22 MALE VOICE: Six.

23 MR. STANONIK: -- one, two, three, four --

24 six with the tables, yeah.

25 MR. BROOKMAN: I'm just thinking about 
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1 switching back and forth between these two.

2 MS. ARMSTRONG: I would wait and do it at 

3 the end.

4 MR. BROOKMAN: Do it at the end?

5 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yeah.

6 MR. STANONIK: Okay.

7 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. So let me see if we 

8 have additional opening remarks here at the outset. 

9 And thank you, Frank, for --

10 MR. STANONIK: Thank you.

11 MR. BROOKMAN: For all of that. Steve 

12 Rosenstock?

13 MR. ROSENSTOCK: Steve Rosenstock, Edison 

14 Electric Institute. I'm going to go, and I appreciate 

15 all the information that was just presented, but 

16 actually I have a different question. I already filed 

17 some comments. And it's really about, it's kind of a 

18 process issue because in this NOPR that talked about 

19 test procedures there are energy conservation 

20 standards for residential duty commercial water 

21 heaters. So, as I was looking at it, I was kind of 

22 surprised to see an energy conservation standard in a 

23 test procedure NOPR, but I guess one question I had, 

24 and I'm sure that it was answered, but was when did 

25 these standards take effect?
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1 And the reason I'm asking that is I had 

2 never seen this definition of a water heater before, 

3 and I'm not sure if this is a reclassification or a 

4 brand new product that DOE has never regulated. 

5 Again, I'm not in the water heating industry. I just 

6 try to follow the issue. So, if it's a new product 

7 that DOE has never regulated, typically manufacturers 

8 get three to five years to comply with the standard. 

9 The way it looks in the NOPR is that it takes effect 

10 immediately. There is no lead time for the 

11 manufacturers.

12 Now again, it could be that these are 

13 exactly what they're doing now in terms of under their 

14 current status as a "commercial water heater", but 

15 again, in terms of just again as kind of a third party 

16 just seeing this, it just seems like all of a sudden 

17 it's a new product with a new definition with a new 

18 energy efficiency, an energy conservation standard, 

19 and it just surprised me that there was no lead time 

20 whatsoever.

21 So, again, I'm sure -- I hope to be 

22 corrected. We already filed comments to that, but 

23 again it's more of a process issue. Is it a 

24 reclassification or is it --

25 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yes.
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1 MR. ROSENSTOCK: -- a new product?

2 MS. ARMSTRONG: It's not a new product.

3 MR. ROSENSTOCK: What?

4 MS. ARMSTRONG: It's not a new product.

5 MR. ROSENSTOCK: Okay.

6 MS. ARMSTRONG: It's a reclassification. 

7 You're talking about light duty? Is that the issue?

8 MR. ROSENSTOCK: No. Residential duty 

9 commercial water heaters.

10 MS. ARMSTRONG: Right.

11 MR. BROOKMAN: Ashley Armstrong.

12 MS. ARMSTRONG: This is Ashley from DOE. 

13 What we did, and you guys can feel free to chime in at 

14 will if you'd like, but what we did when we did the 

15 uniform efficiency descriptor test method was we 

16 created a new method of tests for a sliver of the now 

17 regulated commercial market that is tested. It's 

18 defined and tested in accordance with the uniform 

19 efficiency descriptor test procedure, but it's still 

20 regulated under the commercial section in our 

21 regulations. So we're translating this new method and 

22 new descriptor using the conversion factor analysis 

23 for already regulated products I think is the best way 

24 to say it.

25 MR. YORK: Yeah. You're just shifting the
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1 test procedures.

2 MS. ARMSTRONG: There's no new --

3 MALE VOICE: Right.

4 MS. ARMSTRONG: It's just there's a portion 

5 of the commercial market that has shifted to be tested 

6 similarly to what I would say consumer models, and 

7 that shift results in a change in descriptor for 

8 already regulated products that meet that definition. 

9 The definition was established in the test procedure 

10 rule, and all the dates and associated requirements 

11 were established by statute.

12 MR. ROSENSTOCK: Okay. Thank you for that 

13 clarification. It was not clear when I read the NOPR. 

14 Thank you.

15 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yeah. It's probably more 

16 clear if you read the test procedure, which was --

17 MR. BROOKMAN: Charlie?

18 MS. ARMSTRONG: -- finished a year ago.

19 MR. ADAMS: Charlie Adams, A.O. Smith. 

20 Yeah. I'll just pile on. The residential duty 

21 commercial does have a minimum efficiency performance 

22 standard in effect today. It's just being translated 

23 by a conversion factor of thermal efficiency and 

24 standby loss to the new uniform descriptor, so it's 

25 changing the yardstick by which we measure something 
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1 that's already measured.

2 MR. ROSENSTOCK: Okay. Thank you. And 

3 again, it was just the fact that, you know, it said 

4 test procedure and then it came in with the new 

5 standard, so that also added to my confusion there, so 

6 thank you.

7 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you, Steve. Additional 

8 opening remarks here or comments here at the outset 

9 before we dive into the detailed content?

10 MR. SACHS: This is Harvey, and I would like 

11 to just remind all of us that much of this is about 

12 requirements that come out of AEMTCA, which was based 

13 on pretty broad stakeholder agreement a few years ago, 

14 so I hope there are relatively few surprises except 

15 for the issues specifically addressed in this public 

16 meeting.

17 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Thank you.

18 Final comments? We're about to go to the 

19 content in the slides.

20 MS. ARMSTRONG: We have a couple people that 

21 walked in late.

22 MR. BROOKMAN: Yes. Those of you who did 

23 not get a chance to introduce yourselves, please do 

24 so.

25 MR. KOGLER: Yes. Nate Kogler with the 
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1 Bradley Corporation. We are the owner of Keltech.

2 MS. GUARD: Misty Guard with Bradley 

3 Corporation.

4 MR. NEWSOME: Hampton Newsome, Federal Trade 

5 Commission.

6 MR. McNUTT: Thomas McNutt with AHRI.

7 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you.

8 MS. ARMSTRONG: So does anybody care if I 

9 present from here, because otherwise I'm going to be 

10 walking in front of you constantly. Is that okay?

11 MALE VOICE: Sure.

12 MALE VOICE: Yes.

13 MS. ARMSTRONG: We'll let Bill go over there 

14 when he's talking about fancy equations.

15 So just to talk about the history kind of 

16 how we got here, and actually, Harvey, you just 

17 reminded us all pretty well how we got here, but as 

18 you know, the statute provides us with the authority 

19 to establish not only standards but also test 

20 procedures for residential water heaters, for consumer 

21 water heaters and commercial water heaters.

22 Subsequent amendments in the American Energy 

23 and Manufacturing and Technical Corrections Act in 

24 2012 amended the statute to require DOE to establish a 

25 uniform energy efficiency descriptor with the 
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1 accompany test method, and then once that is 

2 established it also established a set of guidelines 

3 for transitioning to that new method of test and that 

4 new metric. So that's what we're here to talk about 

5 today.

6 So this is just some of the history of kind 

7 of how we got here. The most relevant portion is that 

8 in July of 2014 of last year we actually published the 

9 final rule of the uniform efficiency descriptor test 

10 method. As we said, that's applicable to all consumer 

11 or almost all consumer water heaters as you know them 

12 today, as well as a sliver of the commercial market, 

13 which Steve referred to in his opening remarks.

14 So just some steps in the rulemaking 

15 process. The comment period closes on June 15. 

16 That's after we have already responded to a request 

17 for an extension, so as you know and we are holding 

18 the public meeting today, so there's about two weeks, 

19 a little over two weeks to file comments after this 

20 public meeting.

21 So I'm going to talk about the purpose, what 

22 we were trying to do with the conversion factor. We 

23 were trying to provide a method for converting 

24 existing ratings where applicable, so there are some 

25 bounds that are spelled out in the NOPR about how the 
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1 conversion factor can apply, but it's supposed to 

2 provide a method for a limited amount of time to 

3 convert ratings in lieu of retesting everything all at 

4 once.

5 It's also to provide a method to convert the 

6 April 2015 standards that just came in to new 

7 equations under the new metric. And then, as you have 

8 already noticed, we only develop conversions for 

9 categories of equipment that are subject to standards 

10 today and where commercially available units actually 

11 exist.

12 So I do want to highlight this is a table in 

13 the preamble of the actual proposed rule, and I think 

14 it's a pretty important table in my opinion. What it 

15 does is give you a high-level summary of some of the 

16 requirements and key dates in what I would call a non17 lawyerfied fashion.

18 MALE VOICE: No offense.

19 FEMALE VOICE: None taken.

20 MS. ARMSTRONG: So test procedure effective 

21 date comes in July 13, 2015, of this year, so what 

22 does that really mean? For new basic models 

23 introduced into commerce on or after July 2015, 

24 manufacturers must begin testing and representing 

25 efficiency using the UEF metric pursuant to the UEF 
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1 test procedure and sampling plan.

2 There are a couple provisions in the July 

3 2014 test procedure final rule that do allow for the 

4 use of an AEDM in limited cases. That AEDM should 

5 also be based upon the UEF test procedure. So this is 

6 new models. New models introduced after that date 

7 have to be tested. There's no conversion.

8 Conversion factor effective date, so date of 

9 publication of the conversion factor final rule in the 

10 Federal Register for basic models certified using the 

11 EF metric or thermal efficiency and/or standby loss 

12 metrics prior to July 13, 2015.

13 So, if you have a currently existing model 

14 that's already certified with the Department under one 

15 of those metrics and under one of those regulatory 

16 schemes, manufacturers must transition all of their 

17 representations to UEF either by applying the 

18 conversion factor equations as established by the 

19 final rule or by using the UEF test procedure and 

20 sampling plan or once again an AEDM that is based on 

21 the UEF test procedure as applicable.

22 So basically once we finalize the final 

23 rule, date of publication is the effective date. 

24 That's when your one year starts. For previously 

25 certified models, not new models, they must begin 
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1 using this conversion factor and transitioning, or at 

2 your discretion you can also use the UEF test 

3 procedure.

4 Conversion factor ending date. Ending one 

5 year after the publication of the conversion factor 

6 final rule, all basic models must be tested in terms 

7 of UEF using the UEF test procedure and sampling plan 

8 or an AEDM that was based on the UEF test procedure 

9 where allowed. After that one-year point everything 

10 is based on testing. Everything must be tested and 

11 recertified based on that testing. Okay?

12 MS. SHEPHERD: Ashley, I have a question. 

13 So that says all representations in UEF, so that means 

14 although you can certify to the Department EF and UEF, 

15 your representations can't have anything about EF?

16 MS. ARMSTRONG: So I don't think we 

17 addressed that specifically, but we can address that 

18 in our comments.

19 MR. BROOKMAN: Charlie Stephens?

20 MR. STEPHENS: Charlie Stephens. Quick 

21 question. That means as I read this that something on 

22 the order of 14 months from now the conversion factor 

23 expires?

24 MS. ARMSTRONG: Correct.

25 MR. STEPHENS: And everything has to have 
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1 been tested --

2 MS. ARMSTRONG: Correct.

3 MR. STEPHENS: -- for recertification by 

4 that time?

5 MS. ARMSTRONG: Correct. So the conversion 

6 factor is really a one-year thing.

7 MR. BROOKMAN: Karen?

8 MR. STEPHENS: Okay.

9 MS. MEYERS: So Karen Meyers with Rheem. So 

10 the conversion factor NOPR is essentially establishing 

11 the values with which you have to test to beginning 

12 July 13, is that correct?

13 MS. ARMSTRONG: No.

14 MALE VOICE: The testing methods.

15 MS. ARMSTRONG: You're asking the standards, 

16 right?

17 MS. MEYERS: Right. So my issue is we have 

18 to test to the new UEF beginning July 13, but I don't 

19 know what value it is I have to hit until the 

20 conversion factor NOPR is finalized.

21 MS. ARMSTRONG: Right. Which is why there's 

22 some urgency in finalizing this rule.

23 MS. MEYERS: Correct. And if, you know, 

24 comments are not due until June 15, I mean, it seems 

25 to me that this July 13 date is --
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1 MS. ARMSTRONG: Have some faith.

2 MS. MEYERS: Is, you know -- well, okay. Is 

3 not a possible date.

4 (Laughter.)

5 MS. MEYERS: I'm telling you it's not a 

6 possible date because it's not just the testing, but 

7 it's all the labeling and marking and everything else 

8 and, you know --

9 MS. ARMSTRONG: So July 13 is the date for 

10 the effective date test procedure right now. I mean, 

11 at the very least that date has been out for a year or 

12 almost a year and that is when new model testing -- if 

13 you introduce a new model on or after July 13, you 

14 need to be using the UED test procedure.

15 MS. MEYERS: But the issue is I don't --

16 MS. ARMSTRONG: I get the downstream issues.

17 MS. MEYERS: -- know what I have to hit.

18 MS. ARMSTRONG: So I get the downstream 

19 issues, and Frank pretty much highlighted them all in 

20 his opening remarks, and we understand the complex 

21 position both the Department and industry are in 

22 together, and there are some practical things to work 

23 through. But just as a matter of what's required, 

24 simply speaking, new models, if you introduce them 

25 into commerce on July 13, 2015, you need to test. 
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1 That is unaffected right now by anything that's in the 

2 conversion factor final rule.

3 Now there are some practical issues that go 

4 along that that we understand your comments and that 

5 we will need to be addressing, but that final rule --

6 that date is established by statute.

7 MR. BROOKMAN: Charlie?

8 MR. ADAMS: Charlie Adams, A.O. Smith. I 

9 agree with Karen on the practical issues of literature 

10 and all of that, but the big practical issue is more 

11 than a practical issue. On July 14, I have a new 

12 model that I'm going to test. How do I know if I 

13 comply with the new --

14 MS. ARMSTRONG: Right.

15 MR. ADAMS: -- minimum standard or not 

16 because I don't know what the new minimum standard is 

17 unless I have a conversion factor to convert it?

18 MS. ARMSTRONG: Understand.

19 MR. ADAMS: That's more than a downstream 

20 problem I think.

21 MS. ARMSTRONG: Okay.

22 MR. ADAMS: That's I've got test data and I 

23 don't know if I've passed or failed anything.

24 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Thanks, Charlie.

25 So this table is really important. 
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1 Additional comments, questions related to this table? 

2 Yes, please? And say your name.

3 MR. CARNEVALE: Bruce Carnevale, Bradford 

4 White. Thank you for that clarification. That helps 

5 a lot, answers some of the questions that we've been 

6 asking, but it seems to be contrary to some of the 

7 opening statements in the summary of the NOPR where it 

8 says compliance with the amended test procedure is 

9 required beginning on the latter of one year after the 

10 publication of the final rule that establishes the 

11 mathematical conversion factor or December 31.

12 That seems to imply that nothing with 

13 respect to the test procedure takes effect until the 

14 conversion factor is completed, and that seems to be 

15 very much different from what's up here.

16 MS. ARMSTRONG: So that kicks in with the 

17 bottom row here, Bruce. It has to do with the 

18 transition for all models is on that last date. New 

19 models, the transition is earlier. Converted models, 

20 those that are allowed to use the conversion, which 

21 are existing models that have already been certified 

22 to EF and thermal or standby, they are allowed what I 

23 would call a one-year transition. That one-year 

24 transition begins on the date of the final rule and 

25 will end one year later.
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1 MR. CARNEVALE: Okay.

2 MS. ARMSTRONG: And that transition allows 

3 you to use the conversion factors until you've had a 

4 time to transition to all the tests.

5 MR. CARNEVALE: Okay.

6 MS. ARMSTRONG: So, when we talk about 

7 compliance in that sentence, we are talking about all 

8 the basic models, everything bottom line --

9 MR. CARNEVALE: Okay.

10 MS. ARMSTRONG: -- is when that kicks in. 

11 So there's actually a couple new --

12 MR. CARNEVALE: So it's existing versus new.

13 MS. ARMSTRONG: So there is a distinction in 

14 the way that the statutory provisions were written 

15 with regards to new basic models and then existing 

16 basic models.

17 MR. CARNEVALE: Okay.

18 MS. ARMSTRONG: And so that's why we kind of 

19 leave this table out. This is a copy/paste from the 

20 actual document you're reading from, but we leave this 

21 table up because in my mind this helps make clear 

22 there are different buckets that you may fall into 

23 depending on your requirements. Okay?

24 MR. CARNEVALE: Thank you.

25 MS. ARMSTRONG: Sure.
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1 MR. BROOKMAN: Frank Stanonik.

2 MR. STANONIK: Frank Stanonik with AHRI. So 

3 just one other point, and I guess I'll state it 

4 trusting we'll cover it later. All right. So, in the 

5 case of this new model where I'm supposed to make my 

6 representations of efficiency using the UEF metric, so 

7 I'm producing those models. They're rolling out my 

8 door. I still have to put a Federal Trade Commission 

9 energy guide label on there. As we mentioned, at the 

10 moment there's no changes in the regulations for the 

11 energy guide label, so if I don't have a conversion 

12 factor, I can't convert back to put information as 

13 required by the FTC labeling regulations.

14 MS. ARMSTRONG: Right.

15 MR. STANONIK: Okay.

16 MS. ARMSTRONG: DOE is working closely with 

17 the Federal Trade Commission on these issues. I guess 

18 I do have one just question for you though. One of 

19 the things that we have I guess discussed here, and 

20 perhaps I'm going to get some looks, but do you think 

21 the conversion goes both ways? So can you back 

22 convert if you have UEF test data to EF? Does it 

23 actually go both ways? And the Department hasn't put 

24 out an opinion on that for a variety of reasons, but I 

25 guess a question for you guys. Do you feel like that 
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1 would be an interim solution for the labeling issue, 

2 yet still comply with the statutory requirements of 

3 testing for UEF until there's time for which the label 

4 transition can occur?

5 And perhaps you can think about it. I mean, 

6 today is not going to be the day the Department is 

7 going to be able to answer all your questions. We 

8 will certainly answer those for which we can, and I 

9 don't think today is the day that you're going to be 

10 able to answer all of ours either, but we welcome that 

11 ongoing discussion.

12 MR. STANONIK: Frank Stanonik of AHRI. 

13 Certainly other members can chime in here, but I think 

14 let's say in the current situation, and again, you 

15 know, trying to minimize confusion I think, yes, 

16 you're going to need to be able to back convert.

17 We're also on record that our preference 

18 would be that in fact dates slide so that the 

19 implementation of a new label could be concurrent with 

20 the implementation of the new test procedure. We'll 

21 get into that later too, but I think in terms of where 

22 we are today and what we're dealing -- you know, what 

23 you discussed, I think you have to have a back 

24 conversion.

25 MR. BROOKMAN: Hampton, you're next. Why 
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1 don't you get up here close to the table? Step 

2 forward so others can hear what you're saying.

3 MS. MEYERS: Just come take a seat at the 

4 table. I think we're going to be asking a lot of 

5 questions.

6 (Laughter.)

7 MS. MEYERS: I want you right over here next 

8 to me.

9 MALE VOICE: It sounded a little bit like 

10 coming into the party here.

11 MR. BROOKMAN: So for those of you that 

12 missed it, there's been a request that Hampton be 

13 seated at the table.

14 MS. ARMSTRONG: Aren't you glad I told you 

15 to show up in the morning when you asked yesterday?

16 MR. NEWSOME: And I won't be here this 

17 afternoon, so that's why I raised my hand just so we 

18 can talk about these. I guess if we could just dive 

19 into the label a little bit, you know, and I have some 

20 questions since I'm here and we're all here.

21 The issue with the DOE test procedure is 

22 something that, you know, DOE will be working on. As 

23 most of you know, the FTC rule basically says that 

24 whatever goes on the label is taken from the DOE test 

25 procedure, so the FTC staff generally looks at DOE as 
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1 to what is the test procedure and how do you comply 

2 with it.

3 With all of these changes, though, kind of 

4 aside from these immediate issues there's longer term 

5 questions about well, should the label -- what kind of 

6 changes should we make to the label in light of the 

7 new test procedure and what's going on here and issues 

8 like whether there should be any additional 

9 information on the label and whether the way that the 

10 first-hour rating, there are different bins for it, 

11 whether that should be reflected on the label.

12 And so what I'm wondering is in addition to 

13 those issues is there anything else that people are 

14 expecting or would like to see on the label that FTC 

15 should consider given that, you know, we have this 

16 window, this opportunity to change the water heater 

17 label?

18 MR. BROOKMAN: Karen? Please.

19 MS. MEYERS: Well, this is Karen with Rheem, 

20 and I think some further clarification I need not 

21 necessarily addressed to the label, but, you know, 

22 what do we do also about all the marking and consumer 

23 requirements on our websites and on our sales 

24 materials, how we represent the efficiency of the 

25 water heater. So those are all very key questions 
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1 that we have because for the model that I have going 

2 down the production line on July 13, when it gets to 

3 the end of the line and I ship it out to sit on a 

4 retail shelf, how do I label it and market it?

5 MR. NEWSOME: And when you say label, how 

6 are you marketing it aside from the FTC label?

7 MS. MEYERS: Aside from, you know, what's 

8 the yellow sticker I put on the line --

9 MR. NEWSOME: Right.

10 MS. MEYERS: -- and then that unit that has 

11 a production date of July 13 is sitting on a retail 

12 shelf and I'm advertising it. How do I do that?

13 MR. NEWSOME: Right. And so --

14 MS. ARMSTRONG: And by production date, you 

15 mean first production date of July 13 and after, not 

16 an existing model that just happens to be coming down 

17 the line? There is a difference.

18 MS. MEYERS: Well, there's kind of a 

19 difference in the conversion factor. I'm still not 

20 sure I understand the difference in the marketing and 

21 marking of that product. So I understand there's a 

22 difference in that, but the new efficiency descriptor 

23 of a water heater on July 13 changes, so it's now a 

24 UEF whether it was introduced and tested under the EF 

25 test procedure or under the UEF test procedure. So my 
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1 question is and what I don't know is, how do I market 

2 that? How do I label it? You know, what do I display 

3 on the point of sale material? What do I put on the 

4 sales brochures? What do I put on my websites? What 

5 do I do?

6 MR. NEWSOME: Well, there are no specific 

7 requirements from FTC outside the energy guide label 

8 for what you say. I mean, the law says that any 

9 energy representation you make needs to fairly reflect 

10 the results of the DOE test procedure. Now that's 

11 what the law says and that is a broad principle that 

12 when we dive down into the details here is probably 

13 not particularly, you know, helpful.

14 And, you know, without having concrete 

15 examples like I want to say this and this is what I 

16 get from the DOE test procedure and this is what I 

17 have been saying, you know, without those details, you 

18 know, it's not something that, you know, I can 

19 address. It's something we'd have to work with DOE 

20 on, you know, in terms of presenting concrete problems 

21 to them as part of your comments as something that, 

22 you know, we can work on and try to give guidance on.

23 As most of you know, the FTC label doesn't 

24 have an efficiency rating on it, so it just has the 

25 dollar figure and so that, as I understand it, that 
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1 process isn't changing. That gives FTC an opportunity 

2 to change the label all at once so we can update the 

3 ranges if they need to be updated, provide additional 

4 information on the label if that needs to be done, and 

5 that can all be done at once.

6 As to your advertising representations, from 

7 the FTC perspective, generally, you know, we look, 

8 outside of the label, we look to see whether the 

9 claims are deceptive or not, and that gets into, you 

10 know, what FTC generally does is just dealing with 

11 deceptive advertising and that's always a very fact12 specific thing.

13 So, in terms of the kinds of things that you 

14 want to say in your advertising, in your website, in 

15 stores, I think that that's something that you'll have 

16 to just look at from a case-by-case basis and raise it 

17 with DOE and FTC.

18 MR. BROOKMAN: This seems to be -- Karen, 

19 are you finished with this? Other people want to 

20 chime in. I want to give you this chance.

21 MS. MEYERS: Sure. Come on. I'm sure I'll 

22 chime back in.

23 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Charlie first and then 

24 to Steve.

25 MR. STEPHENS: Yeah. Charlie Stephens. 
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1 Just to help Karen's inquiry here, the label right now 

2 based on our data from where I live grossly 

3 overestimates energy use annually because it's based 

4 on the old test procedure draws of 62 point whatever 

5 gallons per day. The new test procedure doesn't use 

6 that same number, so for a medium-sized tank it's like 

7 55 gallons. It's a smaller amount of hot water.

8 And so, if you actually start labeling this 

9 thing in any way with a UEF, that test implies a whole 

10 different level of annual water use and therefore 

11 annual dollars and annual kilowatt hours than what's 

12 on the label today and it's more realistic based on 

13 our data. It's still a little high for us, but it's 

14 still much more realistic than the old numbers.

15 But what do you do on July 13 about the 

16 dollars and the consumption when the conversion that's 

17 being certified is based on a different amount of 

18 annual hot water use?

19 MR. NEWSOME: Well, that for now, it's my 

20 understanding, is not changing. I'll defer to DOE in 

21 terms of the transition to the test procedure and 

22 what's being required on the label, but there will be 

23 a transition eventually and it'll be what we're trying 

24 to do I think is to coordinate that so that we have a 

25 single time when the label changes over to reflect the 
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1 new test procedure.

2 MR. STEPHENS: So the same label would 

3 continue?

4 MS. MEYERS: So I can continue to advertise 

5 units with an EF. I know the EF number doesn't go on 

6 the energy guide label, but it is used to describe the 

7 efficiency of the water heater in your sales and 

8 marketing materials. So I don't know what to do with 

9 models that I produce after that. How do I describe 

10 them? What do I put in catalogs? What does Home 

11 Depot say on their shelves is the efficiency of that 

12 water heater?

13 MS. ARMSTRONG: So I'm going to transition 

14 the representations discussion into what we propose 

15 that you certify to the Department, and so I think 

16 that helps at least answer parts of it from our 

17 perspective, but obviously from Hampton's perspective 

18 we will need to have some discussions about the label.

19 I mean, the label -- I think that's why he's 

20 trying to tee up the questions today of well, if I'm 

21 coming out with a new label to accompany the UEF 

22 descriptor, is there anything else you guys want to 

23 see on it? The sky is the limit. Here's your ask. 

24 So he's asking you for input today. With that being 

25 said, to go back to the cert provisions, but --
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1 MALE VOICE: Thank you.

2 MS. ARMSTRONG: It's okay. I'm going to do 

3 this somewhat by memory. So, Karen, my question to 

4 you was if that unit coming off of your production 

5 line on July 13 or July 14 or whatever date it was is 

6 new or not. Is it first production or is it a 

7 previously manufactured model that had been certified 

8 using EF or standby or whatever? It matters.

9 MS. MEYERS: Okay.

10 MS. ARMSTRONG: There's a clear distinction 

11 there.

12 MS. MEYERS: Okay. So I guess the question 

13 to both of them then, so let's say it's not a new 

14 production. It's a model that was certified under EF.

15 MS. ARMSTRONG: So right now you have EF 

16 test data. You have the test data underlying your 

17 certification and your ratings. You've come up with 

18 your rating for EF in accordance with the EF test 

19 procedure and sampling plan. You've already certified 

20 that EF value, that it's compliant with standards, the 

21 new April standards with the Department, right? You 

22 have that set of information.

23 MS. MEYERS: Okay.

24 MS. ARMSTRONG: On July 13, the UEF test 

25 procedure goes in for new models. Until we finish the 
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1 conversion factor you won't be able to convert that 

2 rating, so you will continue using EF until we 

3 finalize the conversion factor rulemaking and give you 

4 conversion factors, in which case you need to start 

5 using UEF. It's what that second bullet says, right? 

6 For basic models previously certified prior to July 

7 13 it's the date of publication of the conversion 

8 factor rule that you transition your representations. 

9 You have to --

10 MS. MEYERS: Okay. So help me through that 

11 one more time. So I have an EF --

12 MS. ARMSTRONG: From EF to UEF.

13 MR. STEPHENS: To whom?

14 MS. ARMSTRONG: UEF.

15 MR. STEPHENS: No. To whom?

16 MS. ARMSTRONG: To us.

17 MR. STEPHENS: To you.

18 MS. ARMSTRONG: Now our proposal was to 

19 allow certifications that have EF information as well 

20 as the newly converted or tested UEF information, and 

21 both of that set of information for previously 

22 certified models was to come to the Department.

23 Now Karen is asking a step further. Well, 

24 what about representations to the consumer, which is 

25 where you're going with your question, and we stopped. 
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1 We haven't answered that whole question in its 

2 entirety, but I think what we're telling you is you 

3 have this EF test data.

4 MS. MEYERS: Right.

5 MS. ARMSTRONG: You have that information. 

6 We have asked for you to submit both to the Department 

7 with the intention that both would be going on our 

8 website. So for a given model you would have EF, you 

9 would have UEF, for models already distributed in 

10 commerce.

11 MR. STEPHENS: Okay.

12 MS. ARMSTRONG: Can I get to the new model 

13 first before we go with questions?

14 MR. BROOKMAN: Yeah. Okay. Keep going, 

15 Ashley. Yeah.

16 MS. ARMSTRONG: Then, Karen, for your second 

17 question, which is a little, it gets to the practical 

18 considerations that you guys raised earlier, and it's 

19 UEF, right? So for new basic models introduced into 

20 commerce, the test procedure hex. There is no 

21 conversion applicable to them.

22 MS. MEYERS: Right.

23 MS. ARMSTRONG: You don't have EF, you don't 

24 necessarily have EF test data. You could elect to 

25 have it. But you're required to use that new test 
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1 procedure.

2 MS. MEYERS: Right.

3 MS. ARMSTRONG: You have to have UEF test 

4 data for new models beginning July, first date of 

5 production, July 3 on.

6 MS. MEYERS: Right.

7 MS. ARMSTRONG: So that's where my question 

8 comes in earlier about back calculating EF and is that 

9 something you guys feel is reasonable to do. Does the 

10 conversion go both ways? Because that would allow

11 you -- you won't have EF test data unless we say you 

12 have to test to both. And right now the conversion 

13 factor doesn't do that.

14 What it does is the effective date of the 

15 new test procedure is EF. Actually, it says you must 

16 use the new one for new basic models. It doesn't 

17 allow you to use the old one. So you won't have EF 

18 numbers necessarily to make representations of, unless 

19 we do some type of other type of conversion the other 

20 way for this one-year period where, if we feel both 

21 are needed, which we didn't go there. That's not what 

22 the statute requires.

23 So that's where the questions. There will 

24 be a one-year transition period when you will have two 

25 metrics based on two test procedures. Some will be 
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1 converted, some will be tested, and that's why it's 

2 one year. It all goes away in one year.

3 MR. BROOKMAN: Charlie?

4 MALE VOICE: I'll wait for this back and 

5 forth because I was going to go to a different area.

6 MR. BROOKMAN: No. That's my --

7 MALE VOICE: Yeah. I'll go to a different 

8 area.

9 MR. BROOKMAN: That's why I was -- that's 

10 the stream that I was following.

11 Charlie?

12 MR. ADAMS: Okay. Thank you. Charlie 

13 Adams, A.O. Smith. So for, make sure I understood 

14 what I think I just heard --

15 MS. ARMSTRONG: I'm not sure what I just 

16 said, so --

17 MR. ADAMS: Good. I don't feel so bad then. 

18 So from a number or a metric certified to DOE. 

19 Forget about who we, whether we label it or advertise 

20 it or we talk about it, the number that we report to 

21 you, there's a period of time, I think I just heard, 

22 that we can report an EF on applicable units, we can 

23 report a UEF by test on applicable units, and we can 

24 report a thermal efficiency and standby loss on 

25 applicable units.
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1 MS. ARMSTRONG: A UEF by --

2 MS. MEYERS: Conversion.

3 MS. ARMSTRONG: -- conversion.

4 MR. ADAMS: And we can get all of those to a 

5 UEF by conversion.

6 MS. ARMSTRONG: For previously certified 

7 models --

8 MR. ADAMS: For two of the three, the 

9 previous two, the thermal efficiency standby loss and 

10 the EF by test, we can convert those to UEF with the 

11 conversion factor.

12 MS. ARMSTRONG: Correct. And you can give 

13 us all four metrics. Not only can you, but the 

14 proposal is you must.

15 MR. ADAMS: Right. And I'm okay with that, 

16 and by the way, I'm okay with converting both ways. 

17 If we have a mathematically sound conversion factor, 

18 there's something I learned in the third grade that 

19 says we can work it both ways, so I'm okay with that. 

20 So I guess the question still boils down to all the --

21 MS. ARMSTRONG: Correct.

22 MR. ADAMS: The real issue of the July 14 

23 unit, have I complied with the minimum efficiency

24 standard --

25 MS. ARMSTRONG: Correct.
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1 MR. ADAMS: -- and also all the collateral 

2 information, what do I -- do I confuse the consumer 

3 even more for a year by talking in terms of three 

4 different metrics? That's a problem. That's one of 

5 the problems that this whole thing was supposed to fix 

6 in the first place.

7 MS. ARMSTRONG: So I agree, but you guys 

8 also can't make your transitions overnight. So while 

9 eliminating confuser -- confuser -- consumer confusion 

10 is really important, I think it's equally as important 

11 not to say you have to flip on a dime, you know, in a 

12 24-hour period.

13 MR. ADAMS: Yes.

14 MS. ARMSTRONG: So that's what that one year 

15 was supposed to do. You know, as an industry, if you 

16 guys want to talk to both Hampton and DOE about how 

17 you message to consumers, I mean, really that's

18 more -- we can explain what our test procedures allow, 

19 but generally speaking, what you just explained is 

20 consistent with our proposal. That was what we said 

21 in our proposal.

22 MR. BROOKMAN: Back to Charlie.

23 MR. STEPHENS: Charlie Stephens. I think 

24 this might help clarify because right now I'm a little 

25 confused. I want to read from something in your 
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1 proposal here. It says, manufacturers would not be 

2 required to submit revised certification reports for 

3 previously certified basic models until the next 

4 annual certification date, May 1.

5 MS. ARMSTRONG: Correct. Yeah.

6 MR. STEPHENS: What does that have to do 

7 with one year? And what this tells me, I mean, and 

8 tell me if I'm wrong here, is that if you have an 

9 existing model, you don't have to certify to DOE 

10 anything on that thing --

11 MS. ARMSTRONG: Correct. We were trying to 

12 give them time.

13 MR. STEPHENS: -- until next May --

14 FEMALE VOICE: Yeah.

15 MR. STEPHENS: -- and you don't -- and I 

16 guess that means you wouldn't have to change the 

17 energy guide label either.

18 MS. ARMSTRONG: Not --

19 MR. STEPHENS: This is the problem. I think 

20 the crux of the conversion, of the back conversion 

21 here, is that unless Hampton changes his rules to be 

22 consistent with that, then they're still stuck with 

23 the idea that they have to put the FTC's correct 

24 information on the energy guide label as with current 

25 rules. But to me that means EF data, which is what 
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1 they can leave on certification with DOE until May 1 

2 of next year, right?

3 MS. ARMSTRONG: For previously certified 

4 models.

5 MR. STEPHENS: For previously certified 

6 models. So it seems to me that the only thing we're 

7 talking about here really is new models. And 

8 Charlie's correct, there's some serious issues --

9 MS. ARMSTRONG: Right.

10 MR. STEPHENS: -- with new models about 

11 knowing what standard you're meeting and whether the 

12 conversion factor is correct and whether the, you 

13 know, all that. Then they have a problem with Mr. 

14 Newsome's rules on labeling as well. So it seems to 

15 me new models are only the real problem until next

16 May 1. Am I wrong about that?

17 MS. ARMSTRONG: Well, May 1, that's your 

18 annual cert date, so we didn't make you recertify in 

19 the interim. We actually just said you've got a pass 

20 until May 1 of the next year even though you can 

21 already translate your existing data.

22 MR. STEPHENS: That's what I read here.

23 FEMALE VOICE: Yeah.

24 MR. BROOKMAN: Yeah. We're working our way 

25 towards --
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1 MS. ARMSTRONG: It was done on purpose to 

2 make it easier.

3 MR. BROOKMAN: -- clarity I think. I want 

4 to stay -- are you in this same stream of content, 

5 Harvey?

6 MR. SACHS: Yes. Yes. I'll -- go ahead.

7 MR. BOROS: No, no, no.

8 MR. BROOKMAN: To Joe then. Joe, please.

9 MR. BOROS: Because I want to roll the tape 

10 back while -- I just need to talk while Hampton's 

11 still here.

12 MR. BROOKMAN: Yeah. We won't let him 

13 leave.

14 (Laughter.)

15 MR. BROOKMAN: Joe, go ahead.

16 MS. ARMSTRONG: I didn't know I was having 

17 your public meeting, but I could have stayed home this 

18 morning.

19 MR. BOROS: I'm still trying to understand 

20 what happens with the existing models. So effective 

21 July we'll be converting from EF to UEF and making 

22 representations -- so that's clear -- on existing 

23 models.

24 MALE VOICE: No. No.

25 MS. ARMSTRONG: You can.
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1 MALE VOICE: You can.

2 MALE VOICE: You can.

3 MR. BOROS: That's what the conversion 

4 factors --

5 MALE VOICE: They're saying you don't have 

6 to.

7 MR. BOROS: You don't have to --

8 MS. ARMSTRONG: We're saying you'll have to 

9 recertify under the program until May 1.

10 MR. BOROS: I understand.

11 MS. ARMSTRONG: So if you want to wait until 

12 May 1 to --

13 MR. BOROS: I understand. However, the 

14 energy guide label will utilize, will continue to 

15 utilize, if I heard correctly, 64.3 gallons per day as 

16 the basis for establishing annual operating estimates, 

17 annual operating cost estimates.

18 MR. NEWSOME: Well, just to back up, the FTC 

19 rules, all they say is whatever you put on the label 

20 has to be generated by whatever DOE tells you to do 

21 under the test procedures. So there's nothing 

22 specific in the FTC rule about you've got to do it 

23 this way or this, that way. It just says basically go 

24 to DOE and put on the label what DOE tells you to put 

25 on. And what DOE has been saying here is that 
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1 they're, you know, going to use, for the label, 

2 they're going to use the old method until we can 

3 convert it all at once.

4 MR. BOROS: Right. So those models that we 

5 convert will be in different bins, different draw 

6 bins.

7 MS. ARMSTRONG: So can I ask you a different 

8 question before you go? Are you going to elect to 

9 make the conversion on July 1 just because you can, or 

10 are you going to wait to do it until when you have to, 

11 which is May 1 of the following year?

12 MR. BOROS: That's a good question. I'm not 

13 sure yet.

14 MS. ARMSTRONG: Because I think that --

15 MALE VOICE: I thought you said there that 

16 we must transition.

17 MS. ARMSTRONG: Well, so there's nuances, 

18 right? That's why your cert date was bumped to May 1. 

19 We got a little creative to help you, or we tried to.

20 MS. MEYERS: Well, you got creative to 

21 confuse me.

22 (Laughter.)

23 MS. MEYERS: I hope you're helping me, but 

24 I'm not there yet, so keep talking.

25 MALE VOICE: I might like it if I understand 
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1 it.

2 MR. BROOKMAN: Charlie, can you, do you want 

3 to restate what you -- say again how you thought you 

4 were going to provide them some help. Ashley. I'm 

5 sorry.

6 MS. ARMSTRONG: So while the statutory 

7 requirements require you to transition beginning

8 May 1 --

9 MS. BARHYDT: Transition is a key word 

10 there.

11 MS. ARMSTRONG: Transition. The statutory 

12 requirements say the UEF, the conversion factor, once 

13 it's out, it starts this one-year transition period, 

14 and you must transition on that one year, whenever the 

15 final rule comes out of this rule, right?

16 What we did was say, well, to DOE, your 

17 certification is what you need to tell us what your 

18 ratings are. You need to sign that statement, et 

19 cetera, et cetera. All that's associated with 

20 certification.

21 Instead of saying you all have to certify 

22 again on July 13, we said you don't need to do it 

23 until your next annual cert date, which is May 1, 

24 2016. Technically, you do not have to certify your 

25 converted or your tested UEF values for previously 
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1 certified basic models that have valid EF or thermal 

2 efficiency/standby loss ratings until May 1, 2016.

3 MR. BROOKMAN: Charlie?

4 MS. ARMSTRONG: There was --

5 MR. STEPHENS: Yeah. Ashley, one further 

6 clarification to add on to that.

7 MS. ARMSTRONG: Everyone's staring at me.

8 MR. STEPHENS: Then that means that for 

9 those models you wouldn't have to do any kind of 

10 conversion factor work until the period between

11 May 1 and when the conversion factor expires.

12 MS. ARMSTRONG: So, on May 1, they need to 

13 send in their paperwork of the converted values.

14 MR. STEPHENS: Right. And you could do 

15 converted --

16 MS. ARMSTRONG: But in varying that date --

17 MR. STEPHENS: -- values until --

18 MS. ARMSTRONG: -- excel exercise.

19 MR. STEPHENS: Right. And then it expires 

20 and then you have to test.

21 MS. ARMSTRONG: The testing has to be done 

22 by the one-year mark.

23 MR. STEPHENS: By the one-year mark.

24 MS. ARMSTRONG: Right.

25 MR. STEPHENS: Right.
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1 MS. ARMSTRONG: They built in some 

2 flexibilities there, so if you decide to start making 

3 -- so one -- a question for -- if they decide to start 

4 making representations prior to the May 1 date, do 

5 they need to recertify?

6 MR. BROOKMAN: And what about brand new 

7 models?

8 MS. MEYERS: Let's not go there yet.

9 MR. BROOKMAN: We're not going there yet. 

10 Okay.

11 MS. ARMSTRONG: We're just going to table 

12 those.

13 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay.

14 MS. MEYERS: Let's get on the existing 

15 models. So we all just came out with new models --

16 MS. ARMSTRONG: Right.

17 MS. MEYERS: -- April 16.

18 MS. ARMSTRONG: Which is why this kind of 

19 somewhat works.

20 MS. MEYERS: Right. So on all these models 

21 that we've all done all the testing on and certified 

22 under the EF, we can -- and I don't know if I'm 

23 stating this right, so -- we can continue to use that 

24 EF metric until we have to recertify on May 1.

25 I don't know what Hampton's going to let us 
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1 do on the labeling part, which is really, really key, 

2 but we can continue to use that EF until May 1, and 

3 then from May 1 'til one year after the final rule --

4 and you're shaking your head. I already got it wrong. 

5 See. Okay.

6 MS. ARMSTRONG: You're going -- well --

7 MALE VOICE: No. No. You got it. Yeah. 

8 Finish what you're going to say. Finish what you're 

9 going to say.

10 MS. MEYERS: So on May 1 you're going to 

11 have to turn in a cert report and that cert report is 

12 going to have to have the EF and the converted UEF --

13 MS. ARMSTRONG: Or tested.

14 MS. MEYERS: -- or tested if you've already 

15 completed that testing. And then one year after the 

16 final rule you're going to have to have tested UEFs 

17 for everything.

18 MS. ARMSTRONG: So it's not one year after 

19 May. It's one year after the final rule of the 

20 conversion factor. So it's more likely a couple 

21 months after May.

22 MR. STEPHENS: So for some models you might 

23 have to test -- if you don't test them before May and 

24 you use the conversion factor, you will have to test 

25 and then recertify them.
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1 MS. ARMSTRONG: Correct. Yeah. Yeah.

2 MR. STEPHENS: Okay.

3 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yeah. Yeah. So, if Hampton 

4 says that your label needs to be based on the DOE test 

5 procedure, you have ratings that are based on the DOE 

6 test procedure for a while.

7 MR. BOROS: Which would be 64.3 gallons per 

8 day, right?

9 MALE VOICE: Right. Yeah.

10 MR. BOROS: But at the same time we'll have 

11 new models on the marketplace --

12 MS. ARMSTRONG: So the issue -- we get the 

13 new model --

14 MR. BOROS: Well, let me get, let me get --

15 MS. ARMSTRONG: -- we get the new model --

16 actually, we're talking about existing models because 

17 we just decided that you guys have introduced all your 

18 new models before April 15.

19 MR. BOROS: Right. The point that I was 

20 trying to make is that we will have new models on the 

21 marketplace and there will be representations made 

22 with UEF that will have been tested at different daily 

23 hot water use. So --

24 MR. SACHS: There will be a bias.

25 MR. BOROS: Yes. So the consumers will be 
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1 confused whether this EF or UEF is based on 64.3 

2 gallons or 55 or 84. So, in my opinion, that creates 

3 a real problem in terms of what we present to the 

4 consumers.

5 MALE VOICE: Yeah. And I think that's a --

6 MR. BROOKMAN: So thank you, Joe. Now 

7 Hampton. If we could please start saying our names. 

8 Hampton?

9 MR. NEWSOME: Hampton Newsome. And I

10 should -- I -- as always, I'm speaking as a member of 

11 the FTC staff and not for the Commission, so, you 

12 know, I always try to say that. So the, you know, the 

13 question about -- so the question here is about 

14 representations. And from FTC's perspective, 

15 basically, you know, we talked about earlier that 

16 there's this very general statement in the law that 

17 you have to -- your representations have to reflect 

18 the results of the DOE test procedure. Well, here DOE 

19 test procedure has all these different metrics.

20 When the FTC staff has addressed these types 

21 of questions in other contexts, you know, there's a 

22 recognition that sometimes the advertising will 

23 involve information that is maybe not the specific 

24 metric on the FTC label or the specific metric that's 

25 certified to DOE to meet the standards. Sometimes 
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1 there may be information that, you know, is unrelated 

2 to the test procedure but is still vaguely related to 

3 energy.

4 And so the bottom line for the FTC staff is 

5 to look and see whether the -- and there's no -- once 

6 you're outside of -- once you meet the requirement of 

7 representing the results of the DOE test, you know, 

8 whatever that basic metric is, and you've got other 

9 metrics or you're concerned that that metric may be 

10 confusing because you've been using another metric,

11 what we're looking at is whether the representation is 

12 deceptive to consumers.

13 And so, if you have a situation like this, 

14 what you want to be considering is whether there, on 

15 your website or wherever you're doing this 

16 advertising, whether you need to provide disclosures, 

17 additional information, to make it clear to people 

18 that, you know, this number, you know, means X and, 

19 you know, if you provide another number, this number 

20 means Y, and do it in a way so that people aren't 

21 confused.

22 Now, you know, I'm just an attorney and so 

23 all of this stuff is fairly technical and so I'm not 

24 saying it will be easy to do, but that is the basic 

25 way that we would approach these types of issues.
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1 MR. BROOKMAN: Russell?

2 MS. ARMSTRONG: I mean --

3 MR. BROOKMAN: Go ahead, Ashley.

4 MS. ARMSTRONG: Can I just say one thing 

5 real quick?

6 MR. BROOKMAN: Go ahead.

7 MS. ARMSTRONG: You're going to have this 

8 transition situation anyway, right? You're going to 

9 have a period of time, whether it's that full year or 

10 whether you do it from the May to the, you know, one11 year expiration date, which is going to be a couple 

12 months, you're going to have a period of time for 

13 which UEF and EF exist in the market.

14 We've gone through this a number of times 

15 with a number of products now that we're starting to 

16 overhaul test procedures and metrics. There has been 

17 some desire to have some time for manufacturers to 

18 transition their ratings, their test data, their 

19 literature, their marketing, albeit maybe a limited 

20 amount of time to not cause too much consumer 

21 confusion. But I will say, you know, that has 

22 happened. We have successfully kind of gone through 

23 it before, you know.

24 We will also put an explanation on our 

25 website, on our database, in terms of what these 
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1 different metrics mean, how they're not comparable, 

2 blah, blah, blah, and that kind of stuff as well.

3 MR. NEWSOME: Yeah. And it's not a unusual 

4 problem.

5 MS. ARMSTRONG: Right.

6 MR. NEWSOME: It comes up in a lot of --

7 MS. ARMSTRONG: Exactly.

8 MR. NEWSOME: -- product categories. There 

9 are conversions all the time. These guys are changing 

10 test procedures or standards on a, you know, kind of 

11 schedule and so we have these transitions not only 

12 with the label but with representations. And as 

13 Ashley's saying, you know, what you try to do is kind 

14 of minimize this transition.

15 And the manufacturers, if they're concerned 

16 that, well, this representation I'm making is 

17 deceptive, then you want to consider providing 

18 disclosures to help that, and you can certainly reach 

19 out to me and to DOE and we can talk about, you know, 

20 the specific problems that you're having.

21 MR. BROOKMAN: I want to make sure we get as 

22 much clarity and closeout on this stream of content as 

23 possible. Are you --

24 MR. PATE: I'm speaking to this stream, yes.

25 MR. BROOKMAN: Go ahead, Russell.
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1 MR. PATE: Yeah. Well, adding to your 

2 point, say FTC looks for things to not be deceptive: 

3 the literature, the marketing, the labeling. I 

4 believe there's an argument to be made after July 13 

5 that the energy guide label in place at that time can 

6 potentially be deceptive, because if you're trying to 

7 back convert existing models now to an EF to calculate 

8 annual costs, they were tested to a different 

9 procedure, drawing higher amounts of water potentially 

10 for a similar sized water heater that's a new model 

11 after July 13, tested to the new procedure, so your 

12 annual energy consumption costs potentially will be 

13 lower for a similar model with a similar EF.

14 And so you're telling the consumer this 

15 costs a less amount of money to operate, but it's 

16 really an apples and oranges comparison at that point 

17 in time.

18 MS. ARMSTRONG: So you'd never back convert 

19 existing models, though. You'd already have that EF 

20 data.

21 MR. BROOKMAN: Frank, go ahead.

22 MS. ARMSTRONG: The issue would be with --

23 MR. PATE: Right, but it's tested under a 

24 different procedure, with different draw patterns.

25 MALE VOICE: Different daily hot water use.
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1 MS. ARMSTRONG: So I guess I'm not, you 

2 know, I guess I'm not following because, in my 

3 opinion, EF readings as they are generated and even 

4 converted EF readings should be represented above the 

5 EF test procedure, which has the same amount of -- you 

6 know, if the back conversion is valid, that's what 

7 that means. It's representative of that test 

8 procedure. There's no confusion there. EF ratings 

9 mean one thing and that's what -- you know, the test 

10 procedure specifies that gallons per day, et cetera, 

11 et cetera.

12 Now that being said, UEF ratings means 

13 something different, and whether they're tested or 

14 converted, they all mean the same thing, at least 

15 generally representative of that test procedure. By 

16 statute, that's what's required.

17 FEMALE VOICE: So, Ashley --

18 MR. BOROS: Well, let me --

19 FEMALE VOICE: Go ahead.

20 MR. BOROS: Can I just jump in?

21 MR. BROOKMAN: Joe.

22 MR. BOROS: I think the point there is that 

23 you could have two water heaters on the market at the 

24 same time, both -- let's just use two 50-gallon 

25 electric water heaters. One has an EF base value, the 
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1 other one has a UEF base value. One's tested with 

2 let's say 55 gallons per day, the other one's tested 

3 with 64 gallons per day. And let's assume they have 

4 similar, you know, EF outcomes. They're going to have 

5 different estimated annual operating costs. They'll 

6 be on the market, on the shelf beside each other that 

7 will have different operating costs. How is the 

8 consumer supposed to make a selection between those 

9 two?

10 MS. ARMSTRONG: So your point -- I think the 

11 point you're trying to make is if -- I think what 

12 you're trying to ask Hampton, and I'm going to 

13 translate this and see if I got it right, is, Hampton, 

14 for models that DOE says have to be tested pursuant to 

15 the UEF test procedure, can they apply the EF label if 

16 DOE provides a way to convert the UEF test data to the 

17 EF values such that you get annual energy costs that 

18 are representative of the EF methodology? I think 

19 that's what they're asking.

20 MS. MEYERS: Well, this is Karen with Rheem 

21 and I have another question. So --

22 MR. BROOKMAN: Well, maybe Charlie could --

23 MS. ARMSTRONG: I don't think you want to 

24 answer that.

25 MR. NEWSOME: Well, I mean, the basic 
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1 question is whether the DOE test procedure is 

2 representative and what they're trying to do during 

3 this transition, which is incredibly complicated, 

4 whether that's adequate or not. And so it's really a 

5 question about whether the DOE test is representative, 

6 and so I think Ashley --

7 MR. BROOKMAN: I want to make sure we try to 

8 respond to Ashley's restatement. Maybe either Charlie 

9 or Frank or this Charlie could -- you want to start, 

10 Charlie?

11 MS. ARMSTRONG: So, Joe, to say it another 

12 way, if I were to provide you a back calculation of EF 

13 from UEF test data, back calculated EF, which in 

14 theory should take care of the differences between the 

15 two test procedure, and then I said your label has to 

16 be based on the annual costs that you would derive 

17 from that EF value, do you have an issue?

18 MR. BOROS: Well, yeah, I guess we have a 

19 couple of issues, but the first issue -- and I think 

20 Frank Stanonik already presented our lack of 

21 confidence with how, you know, the --

22 MS. ARMSTRONG: So that's a different issue, 

23 right?

24 MR. BOROS: Right. So --

25 MS. ARMSTRONG: That's a technical issue. 
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1 But fundamentally, as a process issue, your answer 

2 should be no. I mean, to the extent you believe in 

3 the conversion -- and at the end of the day we all 

4 believe in the technical aspects of the conversion --

5 your answer has to be no. That's what the conversion 

6 is supposed to be.

7 MR. BROOKMAN: Karen?

8 MR. BOROS: Understood.

9 MS. ARMSTRONG: So do you agree with me?

10 MS. MEYERS: To convert a model and label it 

11 correctly you could only convert it to a high bin 

12 model, right? Because the label would be based upon 

13 64 gallons.

14 MS. ARMSTRONG: Not necessarily.

15 MR. BROOKMAN: Charlie?

16 MALE VOICE: Charlie Adams has been waiting 

17 for a while, so --

18 MR. BROOKMAN: Harvey, thanks for being 

19 patient.

20 Charlie?

21 MR. ADAMS: Thank you. Charlie Adams, A.O. 

22 Smith. Let me restate what I think I hear Joe's 

23 problem to be. If I have a model that I have in --

24 that I've -- that I've put in production and put in 

25 the marketplace July 1, so I'm ahead of the 13th 
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1 cutoff --

2 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yep.

3 MR. ADAMS: -- it has an EF test method that 

4 has a dollar amount, dollar operation developed in 

5 terms of the 64-gallon EF test method --

6 MR. BOROS: On the label.

7 MR. ADAMS: -- on the label, I have -- I 

8 didn't do it on July 1, I did it on August 1, exact 

9 same hardware, okay, I have to use the UEF test method 

10 and it falls under the 55-gallon bin, it uses less 

11 energy and therefore costs less money to heat 64 

12 gallons a day than it does 55 gallons a day.

13 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yes.

14 MR. ADAMS: So the model that I had on the 

15 market July 1 has a dollar amount of operation 

16 calculated by the appropriate methods here on the 

17 label. Its exact twin, it's a month younger, that was 

18 tested by the UEF test method at 55 gallons, converted 

19 backwards to get the EF so I can do the calculation, 

20 has a lesser dollar amount. One of those is deceptive 

21 to the consumer I think is what Joe said.

22 MR. BOROS: Yes. That was my point.

23 MS. ARMSTRONG: But I think what I'm trying 

24 to say is that if DOE provides you -- and we haven't 

25 got there yet. We haven't had those discussions. But 
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1 what I think I'm hearing you ask for is, you know, 

2 what goes on the label, the dollar calculation, is 

3 part of the DOE regs, it's not part of Hampton's regs, 

4 so what you're really asking for is -- and that's why 

5 I asked at the outset about my back conversion 

6 question, because if we provide you a method of back 

7 conversion your ask would be also to provide you a 

8 method of dollar amount that would be comparable to an 

9 EF rating. So, in other words, you wouldn't be using 

10 the 55 gallons.

11 If you're going to -- if we're going to 

12 allow the back conversion, we would make everything 

13 comparable. That multiplier would have to be 

14 consistent with the EF test procedure. You wouldn't 

15 just pull the new multiplier from the UEF procedure. 

16 Everything would have to line up. But, in theory, it 

17 all hinges upon being able to convert properly.

18 MR. BROOKMAN: Frank?

19 MR. STANONIK: Frank Stanonik with AHRI. 

20 Two things. First of all, I mean, we've been 

21 discussing how you calculate your cost of operation on 

22 the label, okay? And Hampton pointed out the 

23 regulations simply say you use the DOE test procedure, 

24 but the FTC regulations do specifically identify the 

25 ranges of comparability you use, and those are based 
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1 on the first-hour rating of the --

2 MS. ARMSTRONG: The current.

3 MR. STANONIK: -- current test procedure, 

4 okay? The UED test procedure absolutely blows up the 

5 ranges of comparability because we now have products 

6 and we tested the different water draws depending on 

7 what bin they fall in, and so that becomes a critical 

8 change. And so the idea that you could simply use the 

9 existing label and just manipulate your cost of 

10 operation is a half a step that doesn't solve the 

11 issue.

12 So, to Ashley's point, it is absolutely 

13 critical if the -- the labels at the moment are not 

14 going to change. The rules haven't changed yet. So 

15 it's absolutely critical there would be a back 

16 conversion.

17 And the thing to keep in mind is, okay, all 

18 the conversion factors are taking water heaters that 

19 have been tested to 64.3 gallons a day and converting 

20 it to whatever bin it fits in. And it's absolutely 

21 critical. We all want the correct conversion factor.

22 MS. ARMSTRONG: Right.

23 MR. STANONIK: But if you have the correct 

24 conversion factor, the back calculation should work to 

25 take a product that maybe was tested in the medium bin 
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1 and calculate, estimate its cost of operation as if it 

2 was still doing 64.3 gallons.

3 MS. ARMSTRONG: Exactly.

4 MR. STANONIK: It should all work.

5 MALE VOICE: It should.

6 MR. STANONIK: One other point to remember 

7 that, again, it's just another factor. We keep 

8 talking about less gallons. It's less gallons of 

9 cooler water. The new test is 125 degree water, the 

10 old test is 135 degree. Nominal tank temperature 135. 

11 So not only is it less water, it's water with less 

12 energy it. So there's no question, again, once we get 

13 the thing running, that certainly products in the low 

14 and medium usage bin are going to have lower costs of 

15 operation even though it looks exactly like that water 

16 heater that just rolled out your door today.

17 MR. BROOKMAN: So we're not worried about 

18 deceiving the consumer here.

19 MR. SACHS: I'd like to build on the last 

20 couple remarks with an outrageous suggestion, which is 

21 uncommon for me. The first thing that occurs to me is 

22 that we really do have a qualitative change, that the 

23 absolute essential for Hampton's new label, the 2016 

24 label let's call it, is that it clearly identify for 

25 the customer that this rating is based on the usage 
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1 class: very small, small, large, medium and large.

2 It's a very different label then. And I 

3 wonder if the way to resolve some of this, and it 

4 would probably have to be combined with some slippage 

5 in the effective dates, is to simply continue to use 

6 the old label for EFs with one note added which says 

7 this label goes away, if a new labeled product is 

8 available, it will give you a better estimate of your 

9 operating cost, and the new labels then are UEF-based.

10 Now I haven't completely thought out of 

11 this, this out, but I think it is a transition here, 

12 and accepting that and accepting that there's a lesser 

13 label and a better label would wind up lining 

14 incentives so manufacturers want to transition more 

15 quickly rather than less quickly even though they 

16 probably would want to delay a couple of product 

17 introductions from July 12 to July 15.

18 MR. BROOKMAN: Frank?

19 MR. STANONIK: This is Frank Stanonik, AHRI. 

20 I just want to mention, following up on what Harvey 

21 just said, we in fact have went ahead and drafted what 

22 we think would be a recommendation for an improved 

23 label and a critical -- Hampton asked this question 

24 what do we think needs to be added.

25 The two things we think would be necessary 
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1 on this new label is, first of all, you would only 

2 compare models in the same bin, and there would be 

3 information on the label that clearly tells the 

4 consumer essentially that fact, that, you know, there 

5 are -- A) that you only should look at models in this 

6 bin, and there are other bins, but you need to look at 

7 the one.

8 So, I mean, it's at this point a 

9 recommendation, and hopefully, as things go on here 

10 and the label does get changed, most of it will be 

11 implemented.

12 MR. SACHS: This is Harvey. Following up, 

13 I'm certainly not a human behaviors expert, human 

14 factors expert by any means, but it seems to me that 

15 somewhere on that label we have to have a little bit 

16 of guidance that says medium is designed for consumers 

17 who have X number of people in the household or 

18 something like that. There has to be a short phrase 

19 either on that specific bin or on all of them as sort 

20 of a graph. But end of the comment.

21 MR. NEWSOME: Well, yeah. And I guess

22 that -- and so I appreciate those comments because 

23 they're very helpful because one of -- I mean, aside 

24 from all these transition, very difficult transition 

25 issues, you know, one thing that this possibly does is 
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1 give an opportunity to improve the label.

2 For decades the main -- for storage water 

3 heaters, the main disclosure has been first-hour 

4 rating, and to my knowledge, that term has never been 

5 comp tested. We don't really know how consumers 

6 interpret that. It's presented in gallons. Most of 

7 these products are marketed in terms of gallons in 

8 terms of their storage capacity.

9 So by having these bins with these kind of 

10 qualitative names, does this provide an opportunity to 

11 make the label clearer and better for consumers, and 

12 what's the best way to organize this.

13 MR. BROOKMAN: Charlie Stephens?

14 MR. STEPHENS: Yeah, I can speak a little 

15 bit to that because we dabble in this area. The 

16 first-hour rating was always, up until now, based on 

17 the EF test with a average tank temperature of 135 

18 degrees, which isn't actually how water heaters are 

19 delivered to the store. They're delivered with the 

20 set point at 120 typically, and typical delivered 

21 water temperature is about 125.

22 So the first-hour rating that's on the label 

23 based on 135 degree average tank temperature actually 

24 isn't the first-hour rating of the product that's on 

25 the shelf as it's delivered with its set point. 
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1 That's the way it is today.

2 However, our codes, our plumbing codes 

3 actually rely on those first-hour ratings. That's how 

4 you size a water heater for a house with so many 

5 bedrooms. You know, if you have a house with five 

6 bedrooms, you can't put a water heater in there with a 

7 60-gallon first-hour rating. The plumbing code 

8 actually uses those numbers.

9 So it's actually more important than most 

10 people realize that those numbers be reasonably 

11 accurate because we're sizing water heaters for houses 

12 by law in many states using them. So we really should 

13 try to be better at that, and I think the new test 

14 procedure does actually get at that better.

15 MR. BROOKMAN: Charlie, follow on?

16 In a little bit we're going to move on, 

17 folks, just so you know. Charlie?

18 MR. ADAMS: Follow on to Hampton's comment. 

19 Water heaters are sold on first hour because that's 

20 how we size them, that's how we know what to put in. 

21 We've got a 50-gallon water heater that fires at 

22 100,000 BTUs, it provides beaucoup hot water. If you 

23 want one at 75,000 BTUs or at 50,000, 40,000 BTUs, you 

24 need a bigger size tank. So we do not sell on you 

25 need a 50-gallon water heater. It's I've got a 50-
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1 gallon water heater that delivers the amount of water 

2 you need. So we sell on first hour.

3 MR. NEWSOME: Yeah, but isn't it true if you 

4 go online to a big box store or something and you look 

5 at water heaters one of the primary descriptors is the 

6 size of the water heater, right?

7 MR. ADAMS: It's a descriptor, but there's 

8 also sizing guides on how you put in --

9 MR. NEWSOME: Yeah. Yeah.

10 MR. ADAMS: -- how many people and how many 

11 bathrooms and it will tell you which one of those to 

12 go get.

13 MR. NEWSOME: My question is whether having 

14 those two metrics, which are both in gallons, whether 

15 that's confusing to people and whether there's a way 

16 to improve the label to communicate that.

17 MR. ADAMS: There's 40 ways to -- there's a 

18 lot of ways to improve the label, but don't lose first 

19 hour because that's the important number. The storage 

20 volume is not. Otherwise, tankless water heaters 

21 would make no sense.

22 MR. NEWSOME: So, and both of these comments 

23 and then, you know, we can stop talking about label. 

24 So what you're saying is even if we go with the DOE 

25 bins, the label somewhere should have the specific 
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1 number for first-hour rating because it's important to 

2 list.

3 MR. ADAMS: Yes.

4 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Hampton, noting that 

5 you're not going to be with us in the afternoon, is 

6 there anything else you wish to try and clarify now?

7 MR. NEWSOME: I feel like I've had a full 

8 plate this morning.

9 (Laughter.)

10 MR. BROOKMAN: I want to finish this out, 

11 Steve. I haven't heard from you yet. Go ahead.

12 MR. YORK: And I don't want to talk about 

13 the label, but I do want to talk about representation. 

14 James York from Rinnai.

15 You stated when we were talking about this 

16 conversion factor and representations, you said -- and 

17 the way that we interpret it or way I interpret it, 

18 when it says must transition, means that the date that 

19 it becomes effective we must transition all of our 

20 representations, and your comment back was if you 

21 choose to.

22 So is it the department's thought that each 

23 manufacturer can choose to transition somewhere 

24 between the effective date and the one-year twilight 

25 of it and we can all do it at different times and so 
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1 that I may have products immediately out there in UEF 

2 because maybe I think it's a great metric and Charlie 

3 comes in three months later and Karen comes in nine 

4 months later and Alex is always late, so he comes in 

5 at the one year point? Because now the market's 

6 confused. I mean, that's one of our big things. And 

7 so, I mean, that's our question about representation. 

8 I know you say you haven't addressed it, but you 

9 implied that it was a choice.

10 MS. ARMSTRONG: So this is Ashley from DOE. 

11 I'm going to choose my words carefully here. What we 

12 did propose was that you're not required to recertify 

13 until May 1. That gives you some flexibility I think. 

14 We were doing it because we thought we were helping 

15 you. I think that was our intent, you know, when we 

16 looked at the different options and what the statutory 

17 requirements are.

18 However, if you believe that it will cause 

19 more market confusion and more harm than good and you 

20 shouldn't be doing something differently than Charlie, 

21 and since Alex is going to be behind anyway according 

22 to you, you know, we don't have to worry about him, 

23 but if you believe everyone should be transitioning on 

24 a date all at the same time and that date should be 

25 July 1, that's what the proposal is for: comment.
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1 You know, our perhaps misconception here was 

2 that by allowing you some leeway until the May 1 

3 annual cert date, that that would help you.

4 MR. BROOKMAN: Charlie?

5 MR. STEPHENS: I'll just add one thing I was 

6 going to say earlier, and I think this always happens 

7 when you have this kind of a discontinuity in test 

8 procedures. The problem here is the length of time 

9 during which it can occur, and that grace period, if 

10 you will, or that flexibility period until May is one 

11 of the things that's causing that. But, you know, is 

12 that more important than the confusion in the 

13 marketplace?

14 One of the things that I think is, we'll get 

15 to this afternoon I hope, is that unless we can get 

16 the conversions right, which I have my doubts about 

17 unless we can straighten out a couple of things, then 

18 I would almost rather that we wait as long as possible 

19 for the conversion and then everybody convert at once 

20 with the right numbers, which in my mind would 

21 probably be tested numbers, or closer to a period when 

22 we all get tested numbers that get certified and get 

23 on the label and everything else.

24 I'd rather be using the old labels until we 

25 can actually get numbers that don't rely on a 
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1 conversion factor at this point, unless I get a lot 

2 more confidence in the conversion factor.

3 MR. BROOKMAN: Charlie, go ahead.

4 MR. ADAMS: One comment on the conversion 

5 factor and testing versus conversion. Let's not lose 

6 sight that if we delayed long enough that everybody 

7 had time to test everything, there's still a very 

8 significant conversion factor impact because the 

9 conversion factor is what translates the EF minimum 

10 standards into UEF minimum standards, so --

11 MR. STEPHENS: Yeah. I know.

12 MR. ADAMS: -- that never goes away.

13 MR. BROOKMAN: Going back to Frank's earlier 

14 comments, Steve Rosenstock, you've been so patient. 

15 I've never seen such patience from you.

16 MR. ROSENSTOCK: And you may not again.

17 (Laughter.)

18 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you very much for that.

19 MR. ROSENSTOCK: Doug, thank you, I think. 

20 I'm looking -- I'm on a different stream here for 

21 products that are using uniform energy factors, 

22 thinking about the label in the future, new models 

23 using just the energy factors. From now on they're 

24 going to have four efficiency values based on the draw 

25 pattern. There's four uniform energy factors for 
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1 every storage water heater in the future. What?

2 MALE VOICE: Not here, no.

3 MR. ROSENSTOCK: According to this, yes. 

4 Hold on. Hold on. Therefore, if you're thinking 

5 about, you know, the label, it's both, you know, right 

6 now you're showing an operating cost range. I'm just 

7 thinking, well, you know, do you help the consumers 

8 with different draw patterns by showing four cost 

9 ranges, or do you just show the one cost range and 

10 then based on one draw pattern? I mean, I'm just 

11 thinking about this because if it says the FTC has to 

12 be based on the DOE test procedure and the DOE test 

13 procedure shows all these ranges, is FTC required to 

14 show all the values or just they can pick and choose. 

15 Again, I'm just thinking about this, you know, in the 

16 future for possible consumers looking at those future 

17 water heaters with the UEF label. Again, I'm just --

18 MR. BROOKMAN: Yeah. Frank?

19 MR. STANONIK: Frank Stanonik, AHRI. But, 

20 Steve, depending what bin the model falls in, only one 

21 standard applies.

22 MALE VOICE: Only one standard and one draw 

23 pattern.

24 MR. ROSENSTOCK: Right.

25 MR. STANONIK: Yeah.
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1 MR. ROSENSTOCK: Right. But how do you --

2 but okay, if I'm going into that hardware store for 

3 myself or let's say I'm buying it for my friends or 

4 whatever and we have two bins and we say, well --

5 again, it's a matter of how --

6 MALE VOICE: How big is your family.

7 MR. ROSENSTOCK: Well, again --

8 MR. STANONIK: I mean, this, you know --

9 MS. ARMSTRONG: That's not an issue for the 

10 standards, though.

11 MR. STANONIK: Well, it's --

12 MR. ROSENSTOCK: It's not an issue for the 

13 standard, no question about it, again, but Hampton is 

14 here and I'm just trying to think down the road

15 that --

16 MR. NEWSOME: Well, that's the question 

17 that's, that, you know, we're talking about in terms 

18 of how do you communicate that on the label. How do 

19 we change the label to communicate these bins and what 

20 they mean and what these terms mean?

21 MR. ROSENSTOCK: I mean, my thought, and I 

22 submitted this to DOE, was, well, to make it easy for 

23 everybody, just stick with the medium draw pattern to 

24 kind of be somewhat analogous, but if that's not 

25 possible, then, you know, again, I think there will be 
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1 confusion if different water heaters have different 

2 ranges based on different draw patterns.

3 MR. BROOKMAN: So Frank, and then to this 

4 gentleman here.

5 MR. STANONIK: Frank Stanonik, AHRI. But, 

6 Steve, but really the fundamental principle for the 

7 water heater industry always has been if this is going 

8 to be done properly, the consumer first should figure 

9 out what size water heater they need, and then you go 

10 look for the products that can satisfy your need and 

11 not go the other way and say, well, what's the biggest 

12 one or what has the lowest cost of operation or 

13 whatever.

14 I mean, from the very beginning we've always 

15 taken the approach, okay, look, you need to figure out 

16 what size you need and then, once you know that, go 

17 look at what efficiency level you want to get for the 

18 product you need. That hasn't changed. This, if we 

19 get this all right, this may help that.

20 MR. BROOKMAN: Yeah. Yes?

21 MR. CARNEVALE: I think this -- Bruce 

22 Carnevale, Bradford White. I think, to address 

23 Steve's concern about confusion, during the comment 

24 period on the test procedure I think there was 

25 unanimity amongst the manufacturers that there should 
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1 be some distinction for the UEF, what it is called, 

2 with respect to what bin it goes into, because right 

3 now, to your point, there is a little bit of 

4 confusion. You have the same terminology for products 

5 that could be in different bins. What AHRI has 

6 proposed is to put that range of comparability so that 

7 you're only comparing products in the same bin, which 

8 is determined by the first-hour rating or the GPM if 

9 it's a tankless. So that takes away some of the 

10 confusion.

11 But I would still argue that it would be 

12 helpful to have some distinction so that it's more 

13 prominent for the consumer, that they can see, well, 

14 this is a little bit different than this because it's 

15 a different draw bin.

16 MALE VOICE: Thank you. Yes. Thanks.

17 MR. BROOKMAN: Joe?

18 MR. BOROS: Just a quick comment. I believe 

19 AHRI developed a proposal that was shared. Frank, 

20 maybe --

21 MR. STANONIK: I meant to. Yeah.

22 MALE VOICE: Yeah.

23 MR. STANONIK: Okay. Yeah.

24 FEMALE VOICE: Have we sent it to Hampton?

25 MR. STANONIK: Yes. Yeah. I'll send it to 
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1 Charlie. I'll send it to Harvey too.

2 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Okay. So I thought we 

3 worked our way through a lot of useful stuff there.

4 Amy, please.

5 MS. SHEPHERD: Yeah. I just -- this is Amy 

6 Shepherd of AHRI. Just one closeout. If based on 

7 comments DOE comes to a conclusion of some path 

8 forward where, you know, the certification's not until 

9 May, so the inference is that the representations 

10 might not be until May, I think what's important is 

11 that manufacturers have some certainty in terms of the 

12 enforcement.

13 So, if there is a decision that there will 

14 be an allowance for the EF to be used during that 

15 period, I think that we need something that says that 

16 from FTC, which is charged with that piece of the 

17 enforcement in DOE, that it's okay to go forward in 

18 that way, because I think that's part of the problem 

19 is that there's a lot of uncertainty about this issue.

20 So if we, once we decide what the path 

21 forward is, could have some very explicit guidance in 

22 terms of what the enforceability would be would be 

23 helpful.

24 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Are we ready to move 

25 on now? Yes. Let's move on. And we're going to hear 
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1 from Bill Healy, National Institute of Standards and 

2 Technology. And for those of you that are curious, 

3 we're probably going to work inside say until 12:30 or 

4 so and then see where we are based on the content.

5 And, Frank, you've got quite a few 

6 additional slides, correct?

7 MS. ARMSTRONG: Six.

8 MR. STANONIK: Six, yeah. I mean, again, we 

9 can kind of -- I think that Ashley said maybe hold 

10 them until near the end or --

11 MS. ARMSTRONG: So I would just say this is 

12 a good question for you all just in terms of schedule13 wise. It is noon or close to it. We can keep going. 

14 We don't have a whole lot of slides in terms of -- I 

15 mean, we're going to talk briefly about what we said 

16 and show some tables and show some equations. We can 

17 at least give our portion of the presentation. I 

18 don't know if you want to break for lunch or if you 

19 just want to keep going, plowing through and hold 

20 lunch. We can do whatever you guys like. There's no 

21 opinion.

22 MR. BROOKMAN: Yeah. That was my thought. 

23 DOE's -- if you look at the slide packet here, there's 

24 very useful information here, but it's not a really 

25 thick deck. So I was thinking we'd go through this 
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1 and then we assess where we are at that point, okay?

2 So, Bill, go ahead.

3 MS. ARMSTRONG: I mean, minus the technical 

4 differences that we're going to speak of with regards 

5 to the six slides you have in terms of what you guys 

6 want us to look at, I think the majority of the 

7 discussion in terms of the controversial what we have 

8 to do when has been had.

9 MALE VOICE: I wonder if we could take a 

10 five- or 10-minute break.

11 MS. ARMSTRONG: Sure. Absolutely.

12 MR. BROOKMAN: A 10-minute break now? Okay, 

13 let's take a 10-minute break. Just so you're -- the 

14 restrooms are out near the elevator core. And the 

15 door over here is open for when you want to reenter. 

16 And there's a water fountain right over here, outside 

17 the door over here to the right-hand side on this 

18 corner over here if you want to grab some water, okay?

19 So 10 minutes and then we'll resume.

20 (Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)

21 MR. BROOKMAN: We're about to resume. And 

22 we're going to hear from Bill Healy, NIST. There 

23 ought to be a microphone there, right?

24 MR. HEALY: Yeah. It's covered up, so --

25 MR. BROOKMAN: Are we all set, ready to go?
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1 MR. HEALY: Yeah.

2 MR. BROOKMAN: So do you have the advance 

3 thing?

4 MR. HEALY: I'll just use the arrow key.

5 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay.

6 MR. HEALY: Okay. So we're going to talk 

7 about the getting more depth on the technical aspects 

8 of the conversion factors. I will start out with 

9 talking about the models that DOE tested and what 

10 considerations there were for selecting these.

11 In selecting these units, we based it on a 

12 lot of the comments we received at RFIs and the final 

13 rules of the test procedure. So these are the

14 issue -- these are the properties considerations for 

15 test selection.

16 So one was the NOx emissions. It was 

17 pointed out we should look at standard low or ultra 

18 low, venting type for gas, atmospheric or power vent, 

19 short or tall units, whether a gas unit has a standing 

20 pilot or whether it has no standing pilot, and also 

21 whether there's a condensing unit or a non-condensing 

22 unit.

23 We also attempted to test a range of models 

24 from across the product offerings. Some of the things 

25 we show here are the rated storage volume, any input 
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1 rates, first-hour ratings, a max GPM of the currently 

2 rated units, recovery efficiencies and energy factors 

3 as best we could, and then a range of thermal 

4 efficiencies and standby loss for the residential duty 

5 units.

6 So this plot is just an example. I don't 

7 want to get in too much depth on this, but this kind 

8 of shows you in terms of what the basic models are on 

9 the market and what we ended up testing. So, once 

10 again, just as an example to show that we tried to 

11 represent as best as possible what is on the market in 

12 terms of basic models.

13 So, for example, on the left one, the left 

14 two bar charts, it shows green on the basic models 

15 that are ultra-low NOx. The red is the low NOx, and 

16 the blue is the standard NOx rating. So that's the 

17 percentages on the market. The ones that we tested 

18 are the next bar chart. So all of those -- you know, 

19 I don't want to go through each one of these bar 

20 charts, but that tries to show you that we were 

21 somewhat representative, tried to be representative, 

22 in the models that we tested.

23 So we tested a total of 72 water heaters, 

24 and this chart here shows you the breakdown of those 

25 water heaters, consumer storage, gas/oil, electric 
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1 resistance, and heat pump units, consumer 

2 instantaneous units, gas-fired, and electric, and then 

3 residential duty we tested gas-fired units.

4 Okay. So, once again, these conversions, 

5 these tested units were those that are covered by the 

6 existing test procedures covered by the new UEF test 

7 procedure.

8 MR. BROOKMAN: Do we have questions or 

9 comments before we move to the next section?

10 MS. SHEPHERD: I have a question.

11 MR. BROOKMAN: Amy.

12 MS. SHEPHERD: This is Amy Shepherd with 

13 AHRI. So in the number it says that this focused on 

14 models that met the April 2015 standards. So did all 

15 of these meet those standard levels, or can you give 

16 us a breakdown of --

17 MR. HEALY: They all met the existing 

18 standard, the April 2015 standard.

19 MS. SHEPHERD: So it wasn't just focused --

20 they all met them.

21 MR. HEALY: Yes.

22 MS. SHEPHERD: Oh, and now when did you do 

23 this -- I'm sorry. Amy Shepherd again. And what was 

24 the time frame for this testing? When did it --

25 MS. ARMSTRONG: In the past year.
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1 MR. HEALY: Past year, yeah.

2 MS. SHEPHERD: So, okay.

3 MS. MEYERS: So this is Karen --

4 MS. ARMSTRONG: Since the test procedure was 

5 finalized.

6 MS. MEYERS: Where were these units tested 

7 at?

8 MR. HEALY: There were multiple labs at 

9 which they were tested at.

10 MS. MEYERS: Such as?

11 MS. ARMSTRONG: Cortland. Same places you 

12 test, no difference.

13 MS. MEYERS: And so the labs were -- all met 

14 ISO --

15 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yes.

16 MS. MEYERS: -- 17 and 25?

17 MS. ARMSTRONG: It's all the labs you use. 

18 It's no different. You know the same labs we use.

19 MR. BOROS: Let me just -- Joe Boros here. 

20 I'd like to clarify the question. You indicated that 

21 all the models met the 2015 that were tested? Of gas 

22 or electric, or what are you -- because the --

23 MR. HEALY: Yes.

24 MR. BOROS: -- the data says otherwise. So 

25 I'm just trying to clarify which categories you're 
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1 referring to when you --

2 MS. ARMSTRONG: So all the models had 

3 ratings that would show that they comply with the new 

4 standards.

5 MALE VOICE: Was the point of 15, yes.

6 MR. SACHS: A current rating.

7 MR. BOROS: There are several models. And I 

8 don't know if you want to get into all the data here, 

9 but -- that would comply to the previous level, right? 

10 For example, electric, there were several --

11 MR. HEALY: Once again, they were rated to 

12 meet the 2015 standards, and that's the measured data.

13 MR. YORK: Certified?

14 MS. ARMSTRONG: Well, it's the certified 

15 data.

16 MR. YORK: Thank you.

17 MS. ARMSTRONG: Not necessarily the single 

18 measurement, though.

19 MR. CARNEVALE: Bruce Carnevale, Bradford 

20 White. What date did you do this testing or what 

21 dates?

22 MS. ARMSTRONG: So it was between July when 

23 we finalized the test procedure, so July 2014, over 

24 the past year to current.

25 MR. BROOKMAN: Frank Stanonik.
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1 MR. STANONIK: Frank Stanonik, AHRI. So I 

2 guess the first question. So different units were 

3 tested at different facilities. Were units of a 

4 single fuel type all tested at the same facility, or 

5 that also varied?

6 MS. ARMSTRONG: Most of them were all tested 

7 at the same facility. There were some units that were 

8 tested a couple times at the facility, the same unit.

9 MR. STANONIK: All right. So the real 

10 question or a bigger question is if -- so some units 

11 were tested at different facilities. Did the analysis 

12 attempt to factor in the laboratory variability of the 

13 test results?

14 MR. HEALY: No. So for the most part, the 

15 tests were done -- well, the tests were done, old test 

16 procedure, new test procedure, in the same facility.

17 MR. STANONIK: Oh, okay.

18 MS. ARMSTRONG: So the delta. So we --

19 MR. STANONIK: Okay.

20 MS. ARMSTRONG: Every unit we pulled we 

21 tested for current test procedure and new test 

22 procedure.

23 MR. STANONIK: Right.

24 MS. MEYERS: So this is Karen with Rheem. 

25 So does this -- this is you tested 72 units. Does 
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1 that mean you ran 72 tests?

2 MS. ARMSTRONG: No. There are 72 individual 

3 models.

4 MS. MEYERS: But did you test like each 

5 model twice, like we're required to do when we certify 

6 a model or did you --

7 MS. ARMSTRONG: No.

8 MS. MEYERS: So you only --

9 MS. ARMSTRONG: And you're not required to 

10 test each unit twice. You're required to test two 

11 units or more per model.

12 MALE VOICE: Yes.

13 MS. MEYERS: All right. So --

14 MS. ARMSTRONG: So no. What we have -- we 

15 compared single-unit tests to single-unit tests, one 

16 to one. It's not ratings. We didn't compare rated 

17 values to single-unit tests, and we didn't compare 

18 rated values to new rated value. We compared single19 unit tests to single-unit tests.

20 MS. MEYERS: And only one test was run on 

21 each --

22 MS. ARMSTRONG: Single-unit test.

23 MR. HEALY: Well, one -- right. For one 

24 energy-factor test, one --

25 MS. ARMSTRONG: Right.
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1 MR. HEALY: -- UEF test on the same exact 

2 unit --

3 MS. ARMSTRONG: Right.

4 MR. HEALY: -- was the equivalent.

5 MR. BOROS: I would draw your attention to 

6 CS-10, CS-8, and CS-7. Are they in fact 95 or 94 

7 combined water, the rated water heaters that were 

8 tested?

9 MS. ARMSTRONG: I'll look. I don't have it 

10 in front of me.

11 MR. BOROS: Is that -- for example, CS-7 --

12 MR. BROOKMAN: What are you referring to 

13 there, Joe?

14 MR. BOROS: This is the --

15 MALE VOICE: The test model testing notes.

16 MR. BOROS: -- Milburn type date.

17 MALE VOICE: Stapled 8/13.

18 MR. BOROS: For example -- and I don't mean

19 to be picking on data, but CS-10 was tested with .902. 

20 CS-8 was .901, and CS-7 was .855. Are these truly 

21 certified to 95 or 94?

22 MS. ARMSTRONG: I will look. We'll look at 

23 it.

24 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. We'll dig that out. 

25 Additional questions for Bill on this segment before 
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1 we -- yes, Charlie.

2 MR. ADAMS: We voted, and I was out of the 

3 room. I apologize if it's been addressed. Charlie 

4 Adams, A.O. Smith. The question, it's been raised on 

5 the seven residential duty units that we have a 

6 warrant is -- are we missing something there?

7 MR. HEALY: Those are rated at residential 

8 duty. We would welcome input on any problems in the 

9 testing because it was measured so that the data that 

10 was shown in the NOPR was what was measured, so they 

11 were rated as residential duty in terms of any 

12 difference.

13 MS. ARMSTRONG: Right. So they are rated 

14 above 75 and when they measured in the lab they come 

15 out lower. So we could have thrown out orifices. We 

16 could have added some burners. We didn't, but maybe 

17 we should have.

18 MR. ADAMS: Okay.

19 MS. ARMSTRONG: So if you think we should 

20 have and we should retest and that would have an 

21 impact, we can do that.

22 MR. ADAMS: Okay. A follow-on question.

23 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yeah.

24 MR. ADAMS: So, on Table 322, residential 

25 duty, commercial storage water heater attributes, RB4 
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1 is show as yes, condensing, but the vent type is 

2 atmospheric. I need some clarification because --

3 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yes.

4 MR. ADAMS: -- would atmospherics work 

5 because hot air rises, and condensing units don't have 

6 hot air to rise?

7 MS. ARMSTRONG: I got it. We'll look at it.

8 MR. BROOKMAN: We don't have it yet. Joe.

9 MR. BOROS: Just a followup question to 

10 that. Maybe I misunderstood you, but there was one 

11 unit tested to represent a model, or were there two 

12 units tested of each to represent a model?

13 MS. ARMSTRONG: One to --

14 MR. BOROS: One?

15 MS. ARMSTRONG: I'm not using rated values, 

16 right? I'm not trying to come up with what the rating 

17 would be for that population of that model. That's 

18 what you guys do when you come up with your cert.

19 MR. BOROS: Right.

20 MS. ARMSTRONG: I did a single-unit test 

21 compared to a single-unit test for 72 models.

22 MR. BOROS: I understand that.

23 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yeah.

24 MR. BOROS: You're almost just basically 

25 auditing a product with a single unit.
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1 MS. ARMSTRONG: In theory. But I'm not 

2 trying to come up with a rating -- a rated-value 

3 conversion to a rated -- because there's a lot of 

4 things that go into your rating that are beyond just 

5 the results of your specific test, right? So that's 

6 why perhaps a test to test is a better comparison.

7 MR. BOROS: Well, I would --

8 MS. ARMSTRONG: And you all do your ratings 

9 differently.

10 MR. BOROS: Well, I would think that if 

11 we're trying to develop a correlation factor or a 

12 methodology that we would use more samples to generate 

13 a higher degree of confidence.

14 MS. ARMSTRONG: Right. And like I said, 

15 from day one, we welcome your data, and we were 

16 pleased to see that AHRI provided data about 10 days 

17 ago or so. So that's great. We have a slide on that, 

18 and we need some more information from that data to be 

19 able to accurately pull it into the analysis, at least 

20 in the right format for which we've already done.

21 But I think part of this is we welcome any 

22 data that you guys want to provide, confidential or 

23 otherwise, to be included in this analysis. And we're 

24 happy to provide you with a format for which all the 

25 different fields that we would need to be able to 
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1 include it in the right bins and in the right buckets 

2 and respond to some of your questions in the right 

3 manner, because the way it's -- and we can get to 

4 this. We're jumping to the very last slide of our 

5 presentation almost. But the way it's been provided 

6 thus far, it does have some very helpful information 

7 and to an extent can be used in analysis. But it's 

8 not aggregated with model characteristics to the level 

9 of analysis that you guys are seeking, especially with 

10 regards to the comments you are presenting today.

11 MR. BROOKMAN: Frank.

12 MR. STANONIK: Frank Stanonik, AHRI. I just 

13 want to jump back one second on the residential duty 

14 table. So those input rates were the measured input 

15 rates during the test.

16 MR. HEALY: That is correct, yes.

17 MR. STANONIK: Okay. Test procedure I think 

18 still requires that when you run the test, the unit 

19 has to be within plus or minus 2 percent.

20 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yeah. So that's why I 

21 brought that up. That's why I said we could retest 

22 them, but what we were saying is as shipped --

23 MR. STANONIK: Okay.

24 MS. ARMSTRONG: I'm not sure it would come 

25 out that much differently, but --
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1 MR. STANONIK: Well, okay. But, well, in 

2 fact, there's a bigger question, though. So all of 

3 the other gas models that were tested, did they 

4 likewise just fire the unit as it came out the box, or 

5 did they in fact run the test procedure and set it to 

6 be within plus or minus 2 percent?

7 MR. HEALY: We have no evidence that it 

8 was --

9 MS. ARMSTRONG: It needed to be modified.

10 MR. HEALY: -- modified, correct.

11 MR. STANONIK: Okay, okay.

12 MS. ARMSTRONG: So in other words --

13 MR. STANONIK: Okay.

14 MS. ARMSTRONG: We can go back and double15 check the reports, but we make a note if they had to 

16 make changes to any modifications model. And off the 

17 tops of our heads, we don't remember any modifications 

18 that were necessary right out of the box to satisfy 

19 that condition. Those did not satisfy that condition 

20 even though they were rated at the correct vent, well, 

21 correct loosely.

22 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay, Bill.

23 MR. HEALY: Now we're going to dive into the 

24 ratings conversion. We'll very briefly go over the 

25 mathematical approach that DOE has taken on this. So 
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1 the conversions were developed for basically three 

2 metrics. So first-hour rating to get a new first-hour 

3 rating, to get a new max GPM, and to get a new uniform 

4 energy factor.

5 We examined three different methods as 

6 possible ways to get these conversion factors. So the 

7 first one is -- I'm calling it a step regression. 

8 This is purely data-based. So just take the data we 

9 have on these 72 units, do regressions. The reason 

10 why we're saying it's a step regression is that we use 

11 this technique to evaluate which factors were 

12 important. So some factors, if you combine them, they 

13 didn't matter and they just complicated it. Some made 

14 it worse, the regressions. So the step regression 

15 goes through and determines which one eventually 

16 becomes the best combination.

17 The second approach is an analytical 

18 approach, so this is purely based on, you know, math 

19 and physics of what's going on to try to estimate how 

20 this -- how to convert from the old metrics to the new 

21 metrics. And the third one is a combination of those. 

22 So do a first cut doing an analytical approach using 

23 the physics of what's going on and then use the data 

24 to fine-tune that model.

25 To assess these, we use root mean squared 
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1 error between the predicted values and the measured 

2 values in all cases, and we'll go through that in a 

3 second. So a really quick overview of the analytical 

4 methods in which we looked at. So for delivery 

5 capacity, we did not look at anything for first-hour 

6 rating. We decided that there was nothing that we 

7 felt was appropriate to predict a first-hour rating, 

8 once again, purely from a physics basis.

9 For the max GPM, though, we did a quick 

10 energy balance between the energy in and the energy 

11 out at 125 and 135 degrees. So that is the basis of 

12 the analytical approach to convert max GPM from old 

13 values to new values.

14 For the uniform energy factor, there's three 

15 different ones depending on your water heater type. 

16 So first of all, for the consumer storage water 

17 heaters, we based it on the water heater analysis 

18 model, WHAM, which was published by Lawrence Berkeley 

19 National Laboratory as part of a previous rulemaking. 

20 So this takes basically the energy out, given 

21 whatever your volume, volume per draw is, divides it 

22 by the energy needed to create that hot water, plus 

23 any standby loss of energy.

24 For instantaneous method, DOE developed a 

25 modified analytical approach since standby loss is not 
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1 particularly relevant necessarily for instantaneous 

2 water heaters. We attempted an analytical approach, 

3 which accounted for the energy it takes to heat the 

4 water, plus any energy loss from that water heater as 

5 it decayed, as it decayed to ambient after each cycle.

6 For the residential duty storage, we did 

7 something very similar to the WHAM model. We had the 

8 thermal efficiency metric and the standby loss metric 

9 for the residential duty storage. We used those two 

10 metrics to try to project what are the standby losses 

11 and how much energy does it take to heat that water.

12 So further details are in the NOPR. We're 

13 not going to go into any deeper details into the 

14 equations here, but there are further details in the 

15 NOPR.

16 MR. BROOKMAN: Frank.

17 MR. STANONIK: Frank Stanonik, AHRI. Bill, 

18 I'll look further I guess, but again, in terms of what 

19 we're seeing, particularly on the residential duty, I 

20 think however you try to convert standby loss to 

21 standby loss coefficient may have missed the mark. 

22 I'll try, if the details are in there, I'll sort them 

23 out, but there's something a bit off on that one.

24 MR. HEALY: Okay. Thank you.

25 MR. BROOKMAN: Charlie.
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1 MR. STEPHENS: Charlie Stephens. Yeah, I 

2 may take a stab at just sort of suggesting where that 

3 is. In a lot of cases in the write-up in the NOPR 

4 anyway, you allude to essentially equating the 

5 reduction in temperature in the two tests, which 

6 you're trying to convert between as 135 to 125, and 

7 that really isn't the case.

8 In the old measurement where you had an 

9 average tank temperature of 135, the delivered -- the 

10 early delivered tank temperature in that case, 

11 especially for taller tanks, might have been 140 or 

12 138, quite a bit hotter, and the water in the bottom 

13 of the tank a lot cooler, whereas, you know, the 

14 average tank temperature now in that same tank is 

15 probably closer to 120, not 135, and if it's 

16 delivering 125 at the beginning of the draw.

17 So not only does that affect standby losses, 

18 but you also -- I think if you look at the different 

19 draw patterns, where in the old test procedure you're 

20 removing -- even in a 50-gallon rated tank, you're 

21 removing a quarter of the water in the tank per draw. 

22 With some of these other draws, you're just moving a 

23 little -- a few gallons of water, and the thing will 

24 trip at the bottom, you know, fairly early relatively 

25 speaking and recover while the water heater is not 
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1 drawing. So you get a -- you know, I think these 

2 things have impacts that we've discovered in our own 

3 lab testing, and then when you get to heat pump water 

4 heaters, it's a whole different thing because how they 

5 respond to that is technology-based.

6 MR. HEALY: I'll just go ahead. It is 

7 stated in the NOPR that we did take some assumptions, 

8 and we did state that that is an assumption, that the 

9 delivered is the tank temperature. And we realize 

10 that is an assumption, and we'd like your feedback on 

11 how valid that assumption is.

12 MR. STEPHENS: Okay. I don't think it's 

13 valid, and I think it may be somewhat responsible for 

14 some of the disparities you're seeing between your 

15 tested and your converted values.

16 MR. HEALY: Thanks.

17 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay, thanks. Yes, Bruce.

18 MR. CARNEVALE: Bruce Carnevale, Bradford 

19 White. Just to follow up on that, we've also 

20 identified an issue because of the change from 135 to 

21 125 and the outlet temperature and the change from 25-

22 degree delta T to 15-degree delta T. In many cases, 

23 the differential is not enough so that the upper 

24 element turns on, and that has a dramatic impact on 

25 the first hour rating beyond what you would expect 
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1 just with the stored energy at the higher temperature 

2 versus the lower temperature.

3 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Additional comments?

4 (No response.)

5 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay.

6 MR. HEALY: So this says which of these 

7 conversion methods were selected. So for most of the 

8 UEF conversions, we went with the combined analytical 

9 and regression approach. We feel the analytical 

10 approach captures most of the underlying physics, and 

11 some of the things that you guys have just mentioned 

12 here, we feel like the regression will hopefully 

13 account for some of those other factors that the pure 

14 analytical approach was not able to handle.

15 For the heat pump UEF conversion, we used 

16 the regression method, and the reason why is that we 

17 are basing all of these conversions on commercially 

18 available information. So the recovery efficiency 

19 values that are available on the AHRI database for 

20 heat pump water heaters are their recovery efficiency 

21 for the electric resistance element, so we don't think 

22 that's representative of how a heat pump water heater 

23 operates. So for that one, we based it purely on a 

24 regression method, so we regress the data that we had 

25 to come up with the UEF conversion.
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1 For the first hour rating, we used a 

2 regression method only. As I mentioned before, we did 

3 not look at an analytical method for first-hour rating 

4 conversions.

5 For consumer units, we used the existing 

6 first-hour rating, and for the residential duty we 

7 used the existing input rating. Or -- right. There 

8 were certain cases where we looked at the different 

9 equations, and the RMS value -- once again, that's the 

10 root mean squared error -- was very close between 

11 alternative types of regressions. And there might be 

12 some cases where the RMS of a different combination of 

13 parameters may look a little better, but we decided to 

14 go with maybe a simpler version or an alternative 

15 version that we felt better representative.

16 In all cases, those differences were less 

17 than one gallon, so we feel like it was within the 

18 noise of the data and the regression, the uncertainty 

19 of the regressions.

20 For the maximum GPM conversion, once again 

21 from the old metric to the new metric, we used the 

22 analytical method only.

23 Frank?

24 MR. BROOKMAN: Yes, Frank.

25 MR. STANONIK: Frank Stanonik, AHRI. Okay. 
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1 So on the heat pump UEF conversion -- okay. But you 

2 did test heat pumps, so why wouldn't you have used the 

3 recovery efficiency value you got in your tests to 

4 inform your conversion estimate?

5 MR. HEALY: We want the conversion factor to 

6 be -- anyone could use it with publicly available 

7 data. Since we didn't see the publicly available data 

8 on a heat pump water heater, we didn't want to impose 

9 that as the conversion factor. Yes, we could have 

10 done it if you measure it, but we wanted somebody --

11 MR. STANONIK: Frank Stanonik, AHRI. As an 

12 aside that maybe can be addressed at some point, we 

13 are reporting the .98 because in fact the template at 

14 the moment doesn't let us put in 240 or 380 percent or 

15 whatever.

16 MR. HEALY: Okay.

17 MR. STANONIK: Because the recovery 

18 efficiency of a heat pump would be basically at COP,

19 which is going to be, you know, multiples of 100 

20 percent. And basically right now I think in the 

21 format, in the template, we can't put in anything 

22 above one I believe.

23 Right, Mike? Is that --

24 MS. SHEPHERD: I'll look at it.

25 MR. STANONIK: I'll double-check them. I 
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1 think I remember us having that discussion back at the 

2 office, what do we do.

3 MS. ARMSTRONG: Why didn't you ask us?

4 (Laughter.)

5 MS. ARMSTRONG: I mean, just saying. Panel 

6 that. We'll leave it at that.

7 MR. STANONIK: Yeah. That will be a 

8 separate discussion.

9 MS. ARMSTRONG: Okay.

10 MR. STANONIK: Yeah.

11 MS. ARMSTRONG: Look forward to it.

12 MR. STANONIK: Yeah. I have lots of hats. 

13 That's not one of them.

14 (Laughter.)

15 MS. ARMSTRONG: Me too.

16 MR. HEALY: So this is not -- this slide is 

17 not meant as an eye chart and not to get through every 

18 one of the digits, but I just wanted -- we just wanted 

19 to give you a flavor of what the conversion factors 

20 look like and how they're breaking out.

21 So for consumer gas-fired storage water 

22 heaters, we found the need to separate these 

23 conversion factors, whether or not there is a 

24 condensing unit or non-condensing. For non25 condensing, furthermore, we felt like the regressions 
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1 were better when you're looking at different NOx 

2 levels.

3 So for consumer gas-fired water heaters, 

4 there are four different conversions. You can see 

5 that the first-hour ratings are functions of the 

6 former first-hour ratings. Or, I'm sorry, the new 

7 first-hour ratings are a function of the existing 

8 first-hour ratings, and the UEFs are a function of the 

9 analytical model, which we're calling UEF WHAM. So 

10 that's the analytical conversion, and then you do a 

11 regression on top of it.

12 For the oil-fired, we have the one equation 

13 as shown. For consumer electric water heater, DOE 

14 proposes to separate it out between electric 

15 resistance and heat-pump water heaters. And there's 

16 also a conversion for tabletop water heaters.

17 MR. BROOKMAN: Charlie?

18 MR. ADAMS: What was the thought process 

19 that got you to separate standard NOx and low NOx? 

20 Was it scattering the data, or was it some underlying 

21 assumption you made going in?

22 MR. HEALY: When we looked at -- we did not 

23 group standard and low together. I heard Frank's 

24 discussion or comment earlier on that. So we 

25 separated the three out. And we looked at these 
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1 equations that we've developed and compared to the 

2 measured data, and we felt that based on the RMS 

3 errors between these predicted new UEFs and the 

4 measured UEFs were better if we separated out by NOx 

5 levels as opposed to grouping all three together.

6 MR. ADAMS: I agree all three don't belong 

7 together.

8 MR. HEALY: Yeah.

9 MR. ADAMS: But the standard and the low, I 

10 guess I'm surprised to see you found a significant 

11 enough difference to separate them out.

12 MR. HEALY: We looked at it either grouping 

13 them all together or grouping -- or doing all three. 

14 So we welcome your comments.

15 MR. ADAMS: All or none is what --

16 MR. HEALY: We welcome your comments on 

17 which one would be better for coverage.

18 MR. STANONIK: Frank Stanonik, AHRI. I 

19 think, I mean, the way we looked at that, the standard 

20 and the low NOx still have basically the same burner. 

21 The ultra-low NOx has a radically redesigned burner 

22 we think would cause difference.

23 MR. HEALY: Okay. Thank you.

24 MR. BROOKMAN: Jim Lutz has a question. 

25 Jim, you should not be on mute. Let's hear from you 
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1 and hope we can hear you in the room.

2 MR. LUTZ: Do you hear me?

3 MR. BROOKMAN: Yes. Speak up.

4 MR. LUTZ: Oh, good, good. The conversion 

5 from -- for first-hour rating, it -- when you do --

6 you did -- you tested under the energy factor. You 

7 got a -- I mean first-hour rating on an energy factor. 

8 You got a first-hour rating under the UEF test, and 

9 you came up with first-hour rating via the regression 

10 method and the forward UEF. And then you used -- the 

11 way I understand it, you used the regression of the 

12 first-hour rating to determine which category -- which 

13 draw pattern to use.

14 MR. HEALY: Yes.

15 MR. LUTZ: Is that -- and then my question 

16 on that is if you look at the draw pattern that's 

17 determined by the first-hour rating for the consumer 

18 storage model, there were, when I looked through the 

19 data, there were nine of them that came into a 

20 different draw pattern using the regression FHR than 

21 the tested FHR. And I'm thinking that might actually 

22 cause some problems, that you'd get a very radically 

23 different answer because you tested under a different 

24 draw pattern than you should have. I just wanted to 

25 point it out, seeing things and not understanding 
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1 what's going on or --

2 MR. HEALY: We tested the UEF to the 

3 measured first-hour rating, measured and new first4 hour rating.

5 MR. STEPHENS: Does that include the 

6 measured new tank volume?

7 MR. HEALY: The measured new --

8 MR. LUTZ: That wasn't my question. My 

9 first question is when you get a -- when you want to 

10 do the conversion, you do -- you come up with what the 

11 first-hour rating is under the new test procedure. 

12 But if you actually ran the new test procedure for 

13 nine of the consumer storage, you end up with a first14 hour -- a tested first-hour rating that puts you in a 

15 different category than the regression first-hour 

16 rating would.

17 MS. ARMSTRONG: Okay.

18 MR. HEALY: And what's -- and is there a 

19 question or other comment?

20 MR. LUTZ: If there's an easy way I can 

21 quickly turn from the slides, I'd be able to do that.

22 MS. ARMSTRONG: I think we get the point. 

23 We just have to look into it. It's not an issue.

24 MR. STEPHENS: Well, yeah. And I want to to 

25 Jim's point, I also want to add that if you're testing 
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1 the first-hour rating for the UEF test procedure, the 

2 volume that's in that -- the volume of water you're 

3 actually working with is whatever is actually in the 

4 tank regardless of the rated volume. So that will 

5 possibly give you a different error in your equations 

6 if you're not using that same volume.

7 MS. ARMSTRONG: So you would argue using 

8 measured volume throughout.

9 MR. STEPHENS: Yeah, because you're going to 

10 get a different calculated number if you're not using 

11 the measured volume from the test when you're trying 

12 to compare to the test results.

13 MR. HEALY: Once again, we're looking at the 

14 conversions right now, so I'd ask you to reassess 

15 whether the storage volume comes in. And I don't --

16 MR. STEPHENS: I'm looking at first-hour 

17 rating here, just volume 125 over volume 135.

18 MR. HEALY: That's the max GPM I believe.

19 MR. STEPHENS: Yeah, 1.147 and -- yeah, 

20 you're looking at the temperature differences, which 

21 are not correct either. So it's not 135 minus 58 and 

22 it's not 125 minus 58. I think I commented on that 

23 earlier. So these equations build up from the bottom, 

24 and I think you've got a series of things that will 

25 lead you inevitably to where your tested values will 
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1 be at odds with your calculated values if you're not 

2 using apples and apples in your equations.

3 MR. HEALY: Yeah. And I appreciate your 

4 comments. Please submit them. But also realize that 

5 V could be either storage volume or delivered volume 

6 per day. So just -- I'll just ask you to make sure --

7 MR. BROOKMAN: Charlie.

8 MR. ADAMS: Charlie Adams, A.O. Smith. I 

9 used to be a real engineer, so I'll defer to the real 

10 engineers who are in the room. But the first-hour 

11 test today from the EF is based on actual tank volume, 

12 not on rated storage volume. So the first-hour rating 

13 has always been based on how much physical water is in 

14 the tub.

15 MR. STEPHENS: I know. I just want to make 

16 sure the equations have that same number in there too 

17 when they're trying to do a calculational equivalent 

18 and measuring it to that very same test or comparing 

19 it to that tested result.

20 MR. BROOKMAN: Yes, Joe.

21 MR. STEPHENS: And the delivery volume is, 

22 as Jim pointed out, based on the draw pattern.

23 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay.

24 MR. BOROS: I have a question on test sample 

25 size. For the ultra-low NOx category there, non-
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1 condensing, I see that there was -- it's described 

2 that there was only four models tested. So is that a 

3 significant sample size to generate an equation like 

4 that and then the conversion equation, and then also 

5 is that a significant sample size to actually set a 

6 minimum standard based on four tests? Are we 

7 recognizing that the market has hundreds of thousands 

8 of ultra-low NOx models? And there's probably 10, 20 

9 different types and styles of water heaters within 

10 that category.

11 MR. STANONIK: Hundreds of thousands?

12 MR. BOROS: Well, how much is it, Frank? 

13 Ultra-low NOx--

14 MR. STANONIK: Ultra-low NOx?

15 MR. BOROS: What's the market size?

16 MR. STANONIK: Not hundreds of thousands of 

17 models.

18 MR. BOROS: No. Hundreds of thousands of 

19 units sold.

20 MR. STANONIK: Oh, okay.

21 MR. BOROS: And there is --

22 MR. STANONIK: I thought you said models.

23 MR. BOROS: No. There's hundreds of 

24 thousands of units sold. Let me clarify. And there 

25 is probably at least, what, a dozen different styles 
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1 of water heater, different designs out there from 

2 different manufacturers?

3 MS. ARMSTRONG: Right. So I think what 

4 you're seeing from us -- and, you know, I'm going to 

5 sound like a broken record at this point. I've told a 

6 number of you this at a variety of different places, 

7 but we would welcome your data. I mean, if you want 

8 it in there -- that's not to say that, you know, DOE 

9 did test a fair number of models for this exercise. 

10 Perhaps you could argue that we need to have more in 

11 certain categories and we need to have models with 

12 different attributes. We didn't get them all. And 

13 you can point out specific models that you'd like us 

14 to test, or you are more than welcome to provide us 

15 specific test data that you want us to consider.

16 We're completely open to doing that, and we 

17 stated that a number of times throughout the past 

18 year. I don't think it's realistic that DOE is going 

19 to test every model out there. But we did do a fair 

20 amount of testing for this rule in the limited amount 

21 of time we had.

22 MR. BROOKMAN: Frank.

23 FEMALE VOICE: Well, let Bruce go first.

24 MR. STANONIK: Frank Stanonik, AHRI.

25 MR. BROOKMAN: Hold on. Hold on. Bruce, 
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1 you want to go first?

2 MR. CARNEVALE: Yeah.

3 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay.

4 MR. CARNEVALE: I hear your frustration, 

5 Ashley, and I feel for you, as you know from our 

6 previous conversations.

7 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yeah.

8 MR. CARNEVALE: Understand what this 

9 industry has just gone through. Don't interpret that 

10 we haven't submitted gobs of data as we don't want to 

11 help. Interpret that as we've just gone through one 

12 of the most massive changes this industry has ever 

13 gone through, and all of our resources have been tied 

14 up to meet the April 15 NAECA-3 requirement. And the 

15 timing of this has been very challenging not only for 

16 you but for us as well.

17 MS. ARMSTRONG: No, and I completely 

18 empathize with that, but I don't think it's fair to 

19 also --

20 MR. CARNEVALE: And back to Harvey's point, 

21 and you know where I stand on this. This is not the 

22 normal rulemaking process. You have some handcuffs on 

23 you because of the statutory requirement --

24 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yeah.

25 MR. CARNEVALE: -- or multiple statutory 
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1 requirements. We did not support AEMTCA. We were 

2 looking for a simplified version that would be 

3 technology blind. That's not what happened. It's 

4 morphed into something incredibly more difficult and 

5 challenging. And I feel for you. We also have lots 

6 of issues with this that are coming out.

7 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yeah.

8 MR. BROOKMAN: Karen.

9 MS. MEYERS: So I'm just going to push back 

10 on that DOE tested several models. I think 72 models, 

11 one, you know, out of a market that's averaged over

12 8 million water heaters per year over the last five 

13 years is not a significant sample. DOE requires 

14 manufacturers to do significant testing on every model 

15 that we introduce. And the burden is on DOE. We're 

16 trying to help, but the fact that this analysis is so 

17 far off, to me, the burden is now coming back on 

18 manufacturers to do this. And I think as part of the 

19 rulemaking what Congress told DOE to do was to come up 

20 with an adequate -- and how you can think 72 models is 

21 adequate to come up with a valid rule is beyond me.

22 It should not be the burden of the 

23 manufacturers to have to provide all of this 

24 information, but that's what's happened. So I do not 

25 agree that DOE did a lot of testing on this rule. I 
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1 think you did a woefully inadequate amount of testing 

2 on this rule, so I'm pushing back on that one. So 

3 I'll be quiet.

4 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Other comments here? 

5 Frank, do you have another comment here?

6 MR. STANONIK: Frank Stanonik, AHRI. I just 

7 want to mention, listening to Ashley, that, yeah,

8 in -- related to Joe's question, I think in the case 

9 of the ultra-low NOx, definitely -- and I was looking 

10 at what we've provided. There needs to be some more 

11 information on ultra-low NOx models with higher 

12 inputs. All of yours were right around 40,000, you 

13 know. And again, talking about the variety of models 

14 that exist, and maybe even I have to look at the 

15 venting situation. And I looked. We have some that 

16 have higher inputs, but that becomes a big factor. So 

17 I think that needs -- one of those areas we need to 

18 look a little closer, or look at more models.

19 MR. BROOKMAN: Neil McDonnell, who is 

20 joining us online, has a question and a comment. 

21 Neil's question is, "Was the draw usage statistically 

22 significant in the regression? If so, wouldn't the 

23 conversion factor be different for different 

24 draw/usage patterns?"

25 MR. HEALY: I'm struggling to understand the 
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1 question.

2 MR. BROOKMAN: Want me to read it again?

3 MR. HEALY: Yes, please.

4 MR. BROOKMAN: The question is, "Was the 

5 draw usage statistically significant in the 

6 regression? If so, wouldn't the conversion factor be 

7 different for different draw/usage patterns?"

8 MR. HEALY: So I think the question is 

9 should these be broken out by different draw patterns 

10 --

11 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yeah.

12 MR. HEALY: -- I think is the question. We 

13 found that we feel like this is the best approach, you 

14 know.

15 MS. ARMSTRONG: We didn't feel like that 

16 level of detail was necessary.

17 MR. HEALY: Right.

18 MS. ARMSTRONG: But obviously we welcome 

19 comments on that.

20 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. So, Neil, please --

21 MR. HEALY: That's right. I would say also 

22 thank you. The WHAM, we feel like the WHAM equations 

23 account for the different draw pattern sizes.

24 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay.

25 MR. HEALY: Thank you.
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1 MR. BROOKMAN: Yes, Charlie.

2 MR. ADAMS: A clarifying question way back 

3 in the last topic. I'm sorry. I apologize. I didn't 

4 ask all my questions. On Table 3.22, where I asked 

5 about the condensing atmospheric, there is also a 

6 column -- the right-most column says standing pilot or 

7 electric ignition, and the entries in that column are 

8 yes and no. Does yes mean electric ignition and no 

9 means standing pilot?

10 MS. ARMSTRONG: Got it.

11 MR. HEALY: We'll have to check that. 

12 Sorry.

13 MS. ARMSTRONG: So, Frank, just to go back 

14 to one thing you said earlier.

15 MR. STANONIK: Okay, yeah.

16 MS. ARMSTRONG: We just played around with 

17 the template, and we can definitely enter values above 

18 one for recovery efficiency. You guys should have no 

19 issue if you're using our template online.

20 MR. STANONIK: Then I have to go back and 

21 talk to our people, okay?

22 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yeah.

23 MR. STANONIK: Maybe it's all mixed up. I 

24 don't know.

25 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay, Bill.
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1 MR. HEALY: So the next slides show some 

2 conversion results that we found based on our test 

3 data. You can see that in your slide deck. So on the 

4 X-axis is the actual measured first-hour rating for 

5 consumer storage units. On the Y-axis is the 

6 regression value that we found. So a perfect 

7 correlation would fall on that solid line, so that 

8 would mean the measured was exactly what the regressed 

9 new value is. So this is what we found for consumer 

10 storage first-hour rating. The next slide shows the 

11 uniform energy factor. Question for Harvey?

12 MR. SACHS: This is Harvey. I'm going to 

13 rant. I have spent a little bit of time across a 

14 bunch of fields arguing that this particular 

15 formulation always makes data look much better than 

16 they are, and the appropriate approach is not FHR 

17 versus FHR but the anomaly versus the volume.

18 What I'm interested in, the data, are the 

19 difference between the new regression and the 

20 measured, not the correlation. So I would like to see 

21 the -- since I don't have the data, I'd really like to 

22 see -- I mean, I see some deltas that are in the 15 

23 percent range and a lot of them that are much smaller. 

24 I can't really use this, this depiction.

25 MR. HEALY: The data are available. I know 
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1 you're not going to be able to crunch it right now, 

2 but the data are available.

3 MR. SACHS: End of rant.

4 MR. HEALY: Thank you.

5 MR. BROOKMAN: Charlie Stephens.

6 MR. STEPHENS: Charlie Stephens. As Jim 

7 Lutz pointed out, there were nine models that he found 

8 in the data where the disparity was large enough to 

9 put them in a different draw pattern category. So, 

10 when you moved on to utilize the FHR results, how did 

11 you deal with those nine that had a different 

12 calculated FHR than measured?

13 MR. HEALY: We used the measured first-hour 

14 rating under the new test to determine which draw 

15 pattern.

16 MR. STEPHENS: Okay.

17 MR. HEALY: So the measured uniform energy 

18 factor is based on the measured first-hour rating.

19 MR. STEPHENS: Okay. Thank you.

20 MS. ARMSTRONG: Which you would agree with 

21 doing.

22 MR. STEPHENS: Yes.

23 MR. HEALY: Once again, this is for consumer 

24 storage. We've been down the heat pump, uniform 

25 energy factor to a different slide for the scaling 
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1 purposes. And I'm just going to go through these. 

2 These are available to you. These are the equations 

3 that we came up with for consumer instantaneous. So 

4 for the new max GPM under both gas-fired and electric 

5 was based on the analytical approach, as we said, and 

6 the UEF is based on the model, regression to the 

7 model.

8 This is the plot of the new measured max GPM 

9 on the X-axis and the analytical approach on the Y10 axis. And then the next slide is the UEF, the 

11 measured on the X-axis and the analytical regression 

12 on the Y-axis.

13 For residential duty, these are the 

14 conversion equations that have been derived, so they 

15 are based on the input rate Q, and then the UEF is 

16 based on that analytical approach that we discussed, 

17 sort of a modified version of the WHAM. And the data 

18 are shown here. So this is the first-hour rating. 

19 And the next slide is the uniform energy factor.

20 MR. BROOKMAN: Frank.

21 MR. STANONIK: Frank Stanonik, AHRI. Can 

22 you go back to Slide 26 for a minute? I very likely 

23 might be being a little dense on this one. Okay. So 

24 we've got this wonderful regression, analytical 

25 regression, UEF. And I'm going to look at just at the 
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1 kind of yellow square boxes. So, if I did that 

2 exercise just for the low NOx results here, I don't 

3 see how I get the line that you're getting. It seems 

4 to me I'd get a very differently sloped line.

5 MR. HEALY: We can research that. Yeah, 

6 also consider the fact that there are some yellow 

7 boxes that have Xs over them.

8 MR. STANONIK: Yeah.

9 MR. HEALY: That they are included in this 

10 correlation.

11 MR. STANONIK: So, okay, so if we took just 

12 the yellow boxes with Xs or not Xs and ran this 

13 analytical regression, I'd get the same line?

14 MR. YORK: Did you not say the line only 

15 represents perfect correlation and doesn't represent 

16 the equation you proposed?

17 MALE VOICE: That's not a regression.

18 MR. STANONIK: Oh, okay. That's -- yeah, 

19 I'm sorry. Thank you.

20 MALE VOICE: Okay. Thank you.

21 MALE VOICE: The lines -- you're right.

22 MALE VOICE: Yes. Thank you.

23 MR. STANONIK: Well, why is it there now?

24 (Laughter.)

25 MR. STANONIK: All right. Okay. All right. 
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1 Sorry.

2 MR. SACHS: Frank, that's to draw your eye 

3 so you don't look at anything else.

4 (Laughter.)

5 MS. ARMSTRONG: We were trying to finish 

6 this meeting before lunch.

7 MR. BROOKMAN: Charlie.

8 MR. STEPHENS: Charlie Stephens. Just --

9 this is an esoteric question. Did you make any 

10 attempt to figure out what the anomalous number 

11 examples were, what was causing the rather radical 

12 departures between some of them?

13 MR. HEALY: Data were reviewed pretty 

14 thoroughly. I will say that. So, from the private 

15 labs, they provided the data, and it was combed 

16 pretty, pretty rigorously. There were a lot of tests 

17 that we asked for, you know, that were not included. 

18 So we feel like we captured any anomalies that may be 

19 going on in the test data from our review.

20 MR. STEPHENS: Yeah. I mean, I would try to 

21 explain it also just by the nature of the water heater 

22 being tested and whether it is different than others 

23 in the way it responds to the new test procedure 

24 versus the old and whether it's -- how relevant its 

25 old EF really is to the new UEF test, and maybe it 
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1 isn't.

2 MR. HEALY: There were no rigorous studies 

3 done like that.

4 MR. STEPHENS: Oh, okay.

5 MR. HEALY: So now we're going to go into 

6 the energy conservation standard. So that was all 

7 based on just the conversion factors from old metrics 

8 to new metrics. The approach taken here was the so9 called percent different method -- the percent 

10 difference method. So we looked at every unit on the 

11 market. We applied the conversion to every single 

12 unit, so we had publicly available data on every unit. 

13 We applied that conversion to get a new UEF value. 

14 So basically, first we figure out which bin it would 

15 fall under under our first-hour rating and then get a 

16 new UEF value.

17 For that model, we determined what was the 

18 current minimum energy factor or minimum thermal 

19 efficiency for every unit on the market. We then 

20 found the percent difference between that unit's 

21 energy factor, minimum energy factor, given its 

22 volume. We also did the same for thermal efficiency 

23 for the residential duty units.

24 What we then did is we computed an 

25 associated minimum UEF which was the same percentage 
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1 below our new UF value that we determined. And I will 

2 have a slide here next which hopefully will describe 

3 this a little bit more. And then we found a line 

4 through the minimum UEF values.

5 So I'm going to just go to the next slide to 

6 kind of describe this a little bit more. So this is 

7 one example. So this is consumer storage gas, medium 

8 draw pattern. So this shows all the units that we 

9 noticed that would fall under that medium draw 

10 pattern. The yellows are what we converted would be 

11 their new UEF.

12 The green dots show the percent -- so given 

13 that energy factor is a certain amount above 

14 percentage-wise its minimum energy factor for that 

15 volume, we then determined which -- the green points 

16 would correspond to that UEF, which would be the 

17 minimum value, the same percentage below that the 

18 energy factor minimum is above the measured rated 

19 energy factor.

20 Then what we did is we found the lowest 

21 points, those lowest green points, and we fed a line 

22 through it. And that's how we determined these 

23 relations between the minimum standard, minimum UEF, 

24 and storage volume.

25 MR. BROOKMAN: Frank.
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1 MR. STANONIK: Frank Stanonik, AHRI. So, 

2 Bill, first of all, so you looked at, in this case, 

3 you looked at all consumer storage gas models that 

4 would fit into the medium draw.

5 MR. HEALY: All of them, right. Yes.

6 MR. STANONIK: All units, all models. Okay. 

7 And then you -- okay. Then you converted, and then 

8 you tried -- I guess I'm trying to figure out here, if 

9 you only looked at models, currently rated -- I'm 

10 sorry. If you only looked at models rated to the 

11 current minimum -- as an example, let's say that --

12 well, this is medium use. Let's say that the minimum 

13 is either -- I'm trying to remember now. Let's say 

14 either .62 or .60. That probably covers most of them. 

15 If you had picked only those models that hit that 

16 minimum, that were rated at the minimum, and were in 

17 this bin, would we get a different result?

18 MR. HEALY: We had concerns that 

19 combinations of different UA values, thermal 

20 efficiencies -- in that case, water heaters that are -

21 - if we didn't look at water heaters above the 

22 minimum, that there might be a situation where that 

23 water heater would fall below the minimum and would 

24 then suddenly become noncompliant if we only looked at 

25 the minimum -- the minimally compliant energy factor 
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1 ones -- we were concerned that there would be cases 

2 where higher ones would fall below.

3 MR. BROOKMAN: Charlie.

4 MR. STEPHENS: Just a quick question again. 

5 Again, explain the derivation of the UEF and minimum 

6 UEF numbers.

7 MR. HEALY: Sure. And I admit that it's --

8 MR. STEPHENS: Just in simple terms.

9 MR. HEALY: Sure. So if we looked at a plot 

10 of, say, a given water heater, so one set of yellow 

11 and green -- and does this pointer work if I do this? 

12 So let's look at a yellow dot and its corresponding 

13 green dot. So those are -- those two points are for 

14 the same water heater model.

15 MR. STEPHENS: Right.

16 MR. HEALY: If we look at the energy factor 

17 ratings, this yellow dot here would be a certain 

18 percentage above its minimum required efficiency.

19 MR. STEPHENS: So the tested EF would be a 

20 certain amount above its minimum required EF 

21 percentage --

22 MR. HEALY: You rated the certified 

23 energy --

24 MR. STEPHENS: Certified value is so much 

25 above the minimum required value, so much percentage 
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1 above.

2 MR. HEALY: That's correct.

3 MR. STEPHENS: And its tested EF, your 

4 tested EF?

5 MS. ARMSTRONG: We didn't use that here.

6 MR. HEALY: This is all unrated.

7 MS. ARMSTRONG: This is always unrated. We 

8 used the conversion of rated.

9 MR. STEPHENS: So this is all -- okay. And 

10 so -- and that -- but I'm more interested in the UEF. 

11 So I understand the EF part of it. But when you did 

12 UEF, what's the yellow? Is that tested?

13 MR. HEALY: This is -- no. This is 

14 converted from a data point, rated value. This is 

15 converted from rated energy factor and first-hour 

16 rating --

17 MR. STEPHENS: Okay.

18 MR. HEALY: -- into a UEF.

19 MR. STEPHENS: Okay. So you took the rated 

20 EF, used your conversion factor to get a UEF, and then 

21 compared that to the converted minimum.

22 MR. HEALY: Right. So that the green dots 

23 are the same percentage below the new UEF as the 

24 minimum energy factor is.

25 MR. STEPHENS: Right, right, okay. I got 
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1 you.

2 MR. BROOKMAN: Charlie.

3 MR. ADAMS: Charlie Adams, A.O. Smith. The 

4 population of consumer storage gas that you did all 

5 this math on or all -- is everything in the directory 

6 or just NAECA-3 compliant? There's a lot of NAECA-2 

7 compliant stuff in here. Is that a correct 

8 assumption?

9 MR. HEALY: I don't -- yeah.

10 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yeah. Yes, it does.

11 MALE VOICE: I think it was only ones that 

12 are compliant.

13 MS. ARMSTRONG: Just only ones that would be 

14 compliant are in there?

15 MALE VOICE: Correct. With the April 15 --

16 MS. ARMSTRONG: But they were on the market, 

17 so they would have been on the market over the past 

18 year. It's not just all the ones that are --

19 MR. ADAMS: So there's a whole bunch that 

20 weren't on the market until recently.

21 MS. ARMSTRONG: I know. I knew that's where 

22 you were going.

23 MR. BROOKMAN: Joe.

24 MR. BOROS: Bill, how did you handle the 

25 draw patterns where you didn't have product listed? I 
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1 think there's some very small and low bins that may 

2 not have product actually listed.

3 MR. HEALY: Very good question. I'm sorry I 

4 didn't address that. So there are situations where 

5 there would not be a product for -- let's just throw 

6 out an example -- maybe a -- if there was -- if we 

7 looked at the various very small draw pattern, there 

8 might have been products that fell into that.

9 In that case, what we ended up doing is we 

10 used the analytical approach to estimate the entire 

11 population of water heaters, all of them, every 

12 volume. We estimated what the UEF would be at that 

13 low draw pattern, okay? So then what we did is we fit 

14 this line through the minimum UEF that we computed for 

15 each one of those draw patterns. So thank you. I 

16 apologize I didn't mention that. So in those cases --

17 the other -- also, if we only had one single data 

18 point in a draw pattern, we did the same thing as well 

19 so we could generate a line.

20 MR. BROOKMAN: Harvey?

21 MR. SACHS: This is Harvey. And to me, the 

22 takeaway seems to be that if my product was legal with 

23 EF, it's going to stay legal with UEF.

24 MR. HEALY: That was the intention of this, 

25 yes.
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1 MR. SACHS: That's the bottom line for that 

2 graph.

3 MS. ARMSTRONG: Right. And we did it 

4 probably in what you could argue is the most 

5 conservative way.

6 MR. SACHS: Okay.

7 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you. Please say your 

8 name.

9 MR. YILMAZ: Aykut Yilmaz, AHRI. So just 

10 looking at the numbers here, it appears that you're 

11 using the rated storage volume as rated per the EF 

12 test procedure. So, with the UED, there's going to be 

13 a change probably for most of these products. In 

14 effect, what the change is going to be is all those 

15 green dots are going to move to the left a bit because 

16 people will have to claim a lower rate of storage 

17 volume. So, if you keep the line where it is, those 

18 ones at the bottom are actually going to shift to an 

19 illegal UEF rating. So there needs to be some 

20 accounting for the impact of the test procedure change 

21 and how that determines the rated volume of those 

22 products.

23 MR. HEALY: Thank you.

24 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Thank you. Additional 

25 comments here?
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1 MALE VOICE: Good point.

2 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay.

3 MR. HEALY: So, as you can see, these are 

4 just the way the standards are laid out or DOE is 

5 proposing to lay them out. I don't want to read 

6 through all this in great detail, but it's by

7 April 15 there was a cutoff at 55 gallons for these. 

8 There is very small, low, medium, high, so there's 

9 different minimum efficiency standards depending upon 

10 which draw pattern this would fall under. And let me 

11 just leave it at that.

12 MR. BROOKMAN: Frank.

13 MR. STANONIK: Frank Stanonik, AHRI. So 

14 this was one of our issues. So based on what I saw in 

15 the previous graph and this, these formulas were 

16 derived assuming that V sub r is like 30 gallons, 40 

17 gallons, or 50 gallons.

18 MR. HEALY: Yes.

19 MR. STANONIK: Okay. And if nothing 

20 changes, V sub r will not be 30, 40, or 50, because 

21 DOE regulations, it will have to be the average of 

22 measurements, and manufacturers -- the solution will 

23 be just re-rate the rating. So again, we would like 

24 to have some idea what's going to happen with that 

25 petition.
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1 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Started again. Joe.

2 MR. BOROS: Joe Boros. Bill, just a follow3 up question. So after you completed these equations, 

4 did you go and check some products? Back to I think 

5 Harvey's question, the intent was to make sure the 

6 product that's currently complying would comply under 

7 the new levels proposed. So did you check some key 

8 water heaters to make sure that that's still a 

9 valid --

10 MR. HEALY: Well, as stated, anything

11 that -- we feel like anything that is currently rated 

12 with a given energy factor will be above that 

13 standard.

14 MR. BOROS: Is it verified --

15 MR. HEALY: That's the way the lines were 

16 designed.

17 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yeah.

18 MR. BOROS: Was it verified with tests I 

19 guess is my question.

20 MR. HEALY: We did -- we just went by what's 

21 rated, assuming that the rated value is --

22 MS. ARMSTRONG: The answer is no.

23 MR. BROOKMAN: Bruce.

24 MR. CARNEVALE: Bruce Carnevale, Bradford 

25 White. I understand that on the gas side. What would 
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1 that graph look like on the electric side if you need 

2 to develop a pattern? Because our data is showing 

3 something very much different, where the gas products 

4 in many cases the minimum efficiency standard is 

5 actually less stringent on the electric side. It is 

6 considered to be more stringent, to the point your own 

7 data shows that product that's legal to sell today 

8 would not be legal to sell once this is implemented.

9 MR. HEALY: We'd use the same approach on 

10 electric.

11 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yeah. So I'm going to use 

12 my words carefully here because I think what you're 

13 saying is we pull products from the market today who 

14 have certified they comply with the standards today.

15 When we tested them, as you tested them, I 

16 think what is revealed is there's test data that shows 

17 that the products may or may not have single test unit 

18 results that come back below or above the standard. 

19 There's some scatter there.

20 You know, a single unit test is not how DOE 

21 determines whether something complies with the 

22 standards. Rated values is a determination by the 

23 manufacturer. Both your tests and our tests reveal 

24 that there may be a larger issue going on there. I 

25 think we're going to leave it at that for this 
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1 meeting.

2 MR. CARNEVALE: Okay. So the data that 

3 we've submitted, the new tranche of data that came in 

4 on May 14, shows that same sort of pattern --

5 MS. ARMSTRONG: Correct.

6 MR. CARNEVALE: -- with not a whole lot of 

7 differential, but still out of the 14 units that we 

8 submitted data for, nine of them wouldn't meet the 

9 requirement any longer where they did currently.

10 MS. ARMSTRONG: So your data contains a 

11 number of dots that fall below the levels both in 

12 terms of UEF, but I would argue also in terms of EF.

13 MR. CARNEVALE: And you didn't find that for 

14 gas?

15 MS. ARMSTRONG: We did not find that for 

16 gas.

17 MR. BROOKMAN: These are the last slides 

18 that Bill has, and then we have the slides that Frank 

19 has.

20 Let me note that it's 10 minutes after 1 

21 almost. Shall we pause for lunch or should we press 

22 on? Press on? You want to press on? How many want 

23 to press on? Show of hands. Not that many.

24 MALE VOICE: I'm willing to press on.

25 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Let's press on then.
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1 MS. ARMSTRONG: So I think we're pretty much 

2 done.

3 MR. BROOKMAN: Yeah.

4 MS. ARMSTRONG: Can you go to our next slide 

5 for me? So request for additional data. We'll do 

6 this one more time just because we all really like 

7 each other and everyone loves to hear me talk.

8 So you did submit data to us. We are 

9 grateful for that. We appreciate that. DOE does need 

10 some additional detail about those tested units. 

11 Given some of the comments you're sending to us, given 

12 some of the feedback you've given us today, we need 

13 some model characteristics. We don't necessarily want 

14 manufacturer name and model number because I know 

15 that's something you clearly don't want to give us, 

16 but at least some general characteristics of how do we 

17 figure out what buckets they fall into beyond what you 

18 have given us is going to be helpful for us to 

19 accurately input it into our data set of 72.

20 For any other models that you have been able 

21 to test that you would be willing to share with us 

22 either confidentially or for the record, we would 

23 welcome the opportunity. They need to be submitted by 

24 June 15, 2015 to be considered at least initially in 

25 what we're doing for the next steps. Our plan right 
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1 now is to move forward with a final rule after June, 

2 but we will see in light of this meeting what our next 

3 steps are after we consider all the comments and after 

4 we look in more detail about some of the data you've 

5 given us.

6 MR. CARNEVALE: Can you give us a template 

7 which will give us --

8 MS. ARMSTRONG: Absolutely, absolutely.

9 MR. CARNEVALE: -- exactly what you need?

10 MS. ARMSTRONG: I can probably give that to 

11 you tomorrow. Sure.

12 MR. CARNEVALE: Do that through Frank?

13 MS. ARMSTRONG: Sure.

14 (Laughter.)

15 MALE VOICE: That is a hat you're wearing, 

16 Frank.

17 MR. STANONIK: I noticed this.

18 MS. ARMSTRONG: Absolutely.

19 MR. BROOKMAN: Yes, Frank.

20 MR. STANONIK: Yeah. Frank Stanonik, AHRI. 

21 Absolutely, Certainly, Ashley, we can give you the 

22 additional backup. We have it and we'll give it to 

23 you.

24 I think I mentioned we also have been 

25 running comparative tests on all of our water heaters 
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1 in the residential program, so we will update the 

2 information with whatever additional testing has 

3 happened since we took the picture and as close as we 

4 can to June 15.

5 MS. ARMSTRONG: Yeah, and, I mean, to Jeff's 

6 point earlier, if you have specific units or designs 

7 or new models that you've come out with since April, I 

8 mean, clearly when we purchased them we were 

9 purchasing models that probably were available prior 

10 to April, right? So, if you have new models or if you 

11 have new designs or if you have niches where you think 

12 DOE should be testing these products or these specific 

13 models should be included in the data set, we'll work 

14 with you to make that happen, but we need to do that 

15 now. We're willing to do that.

16 MR. BROOKMAN: Joe.

17 MR. BOROS: Let me just respond to that to 

18 say that we have already submitted data to support 

19 that effort. And we recognize we need to submit 

20 additional data, but the timing is rather short. I 

21 mean, we all have businesses to run and we're doing 

22 different things, so we're going to make every effort 

23 to submit data, but at least from our company's 

24 perspective that really doesn't give us a lot of time 

25 to do that.
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1 MS. ARMSTRONG: As you know, it's a balance 

2 between allowing more time to collect data versus, you 

3 know, we do have an impending July compliance date 

4 coming up for UED, and that's a statutory date, so we 

5 also have a real need to get this done.

6 MR. HEALY: So -- yeah, Amy, go ahead.

7 MS. SHEPHERD: This is Amy Shepherd from 

8 AHRI. But, I mean, in this rulemaking there's already 

9 been statutory dates that have been missed, and so I 

10 think from our perspective it's very important that 

11 this be correct because this is how the standard's 

12 going to be set, in addition to all the other things. 

13 So I think, you know, we just feel like we need to 

14 push back on that a little bit because it's much more 

15 important that this is correct, particularly given the 

16 other things we talked about earlier today in terms of 

17 this phase-in period where up until May manufacturers 

18 won't need to certify these units that have previously 

19 been certified to this new metric. So I just can't 

20 stress enough that getting the right data and getting 

21 the right conversion factor is essential not just for 

22 the conversion factor but for the standard.

23 MS. ARMSTRONG: So that's a good lead-in to 

24 does anyone else have any closing remarks they'd like 

25 to make at this time?
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1 MR. STANONIK: I have those slides.

2 MS. ARMSTRONG: Do you want to go through 

3 your slides? I mean, you're pretty much done.

4 MR. STANONIK: Yeah. No, I'd like to go 

5 through the slides if I could.

6 MS. ARMSTRONG: Sure.

7 (Pause.)

8 MS. ARMSTRONG: Where do you want to start, 

9 Frank?

10 MR. STANONIK: Actually, if you just go to 

11 the first slide of the data because I can just talk to 

12 the slides then. That one, yeah. Oh, yeah, that's 

13 great. Good thing I passed it out.

14 Okay. So just to pick up --

15 MR. BROOKMAN: Let's stay focused, folks. 

16 Thank you.

17 MR. STANONIK: Just to give you a quick 

18 overview of what we thought we saw here and, first of 

19 all, yeah, you'll probably need to look at what we 

20 passed out, but let me just quickly note all of the 

21 red numbers are places where the measured UEF in our 

22 testing was higher than the measured EF, and then the 

23 blue numbers, the light blue numbers indicate where 

24 the converted UEF which was by the calculation was 

25 higher than the measured UEF. So that's what that's 
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1 about.

2 And the two yellow ones over there, those 

3 are actually, if I'm remembering right, those are 

4 models that are actually let's say pre-April 2015 

5 models because we started this testing the beginning 

6 of the year. And what they're actually showing is 

7 even though they're models that are non-NAECA 3, I 

8 think in at least one case if I'm looking at the right 

9 one, they would have now become compliant I believe. 

10 Or maybe it's just in this case on the gas. Maybe we 

11 just identified a couple of non-NAECA 3 models.

12 In any case, so what we're seeing from this 

13 is that in the case of the gas, and this is all gas 

14 storage, but in the case of the high usage models, it 

15 appears that the measured UEF is consistently higher 

16 than both the measured EF and the converted minimum 

17 EF. And so, if nothing else, it suggests that maybe 

18 the conversion number is off. But we're not seeing a 

19 consistent relationship between the measured and 

20 converted UEF values.

21 One of the things we're looking at is okay, 

22 so if you have a better than minimum model, and let's 

23 say it's five points better than the minimum, then 

24 when things are converted that relationship should to 

25 some extent be maintained. It doesn't have to be five 
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1 points. It will probably be some factor of that. But 

2 the basic relationship, if the conversion factor is 

3 accurate, should be maintained. So that's one of the 

4 other things we've been trying to look at. And in 

5 this case, what we're seeing is that we're not seeing 

6 any consistent relationship between the difference 

7 between the EF measured and the converted value, the 

8 converted minimum value.

9 So again, if you look at one of these units. 

10 Like let's say, okay, we had -- well, let's go to the 

11 fifth unit down. So we have a unit that was certified 

12 at .67. We measured it at essentially .67. Its UEF 

13 came out roughly 7.0, 6.99. Okay. And in this case 

14 quite a bit above the converted minimum. And so this 

15 product today is five points better than the minimum 

16 standard, but when we looked at the converted stuff, 

17 it's nine points better than the minimum, okay? And 

18 again, if we were seeing that relationship hold 

19 throughout this, we'd say oh, the conversion is 

20 working. Okay? But there's not that consistency, and 

21 so that's one of the things we're looking at.

22 And then similarly, and I short-changed you 

23 a little bit on the handouts. We just gave you the 

24 data with the UEFs and the EFs. We did the same thing 

25 for first-hour ratings. We have those charts. 
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1 They've been submitted to DOE, they're on the docket, 

2 but they're not reproduced here. This is bad enough 

3 for your eyes.

4 MR. SACHS: Frank?

5 MR. STANONIK: Yeah.

6 MR. SACHS: I think I'm seeing up there and 

7 on my copy some blue numbers as well. I don't think 

8 we identified them.

9 MR. STANONIK: Oh, the blue ones are the 

10 situation where the UEF determined by the calculation, 

11 by the conversion calculation is higher than what we 

12 measured.

13 MR. SACHS: Thank you. Sorry I was hard of 

14 hearing.

15 MR. STANONIK: No, that's okay.

16 So anyhow, the last thing, and I mention it 

17 because we're also not seeing any consistent 

18 relationship between the respective measured first--

19 hour ratings, EF procedure, UEF procedure, nor between 

20 the measured and converted first-hour rating values. 

21 Again, we're not seeing any consistency that would 

22 suggest there's a mathematical relationship.

23 MS. ARMSTRONG: May I ask a more fundamental 

24 question?

25 MR. STANONIK: Sure.
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1 MS. ARMSTRONG: I'm not here to say we got 

2 all this right, but do you really expect to see at the 

3 end of the day a fundamental exact correlation between 

4 the old test procedure and the new on all models 

5 across the industry from different people?

6 MR. STANONIK: The answer to that question 

7 is no, we don't expect an exact correlation for all 

8 models.

9 MS. ARMSTRONG: Right. That's impossible, 

10 right?

11 MR. STANONIK: You're right. That's 

12 impossible and would take -- well, it's just 

13 impossible practically.

14 MS. ARMSTRONG: Right.

15 MR. STANONIK: Okay. But we do expect to 

16 see a consistent relationship for most models, and 

17 we're not seeing that. Again, to our point we think 

18 part of this is again that we really didn't have 

19 enough data to make --

20 MS. ARMSTRONG: I don't necessarily disagree 

21 with you. I think generally speaking we are looking 

22 to also look for consistent trends. But I think to 

23 think that there's going to be a one to one and you're

24 not going to have things that are outside the bounds 

25 is unreasonable.
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1 MR. STEPHENS: Well, except, can I respond 

2 to that, please? I think that generally means when 

3 you find that situation to be the case that you 

4 actually can't use a conversion factor.

5 MS. ARMSTRONG: Except for Congress requires 

6 one.

7 MR. STEPHENS: Well, I realize that, but, 

8 you know, there's this day of reckoning.

9 MS. ARMSTRONG: That's a different issue, 

10 right? We are required to do one. It is what it is.

11 MR. STEPHENS: I know, but the day of 

12 reckoning comes a year from now or so --

13 MS. ARMSTRONG: Exactly.

14 MR. STEPHENS: -- when everything has to be 

15 tested and then the only thing that matters is the 

16 tested numbers, and if they are radically different 

17 than the converted numbers in some cases and not 

18 others, then you're just staving off the problem for a 

19 year.

20 MS. ARMSTRONG: I don't necessarily 

21 disagree.

22 MR. BROOKMAN: Amy?

23 MS. SHEPHERD: This is Amy Shepherd from 

24 AHRI. But the other thing it requires is that the 

25 conversion factor not affect the efficiency of the 
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1 standard, and so I don't really necessarily want to 

2 interrupt Frank's flow here, but I would like to have 

3 very gently for a non-engineer an explanation of like 

4 the process that DOE used to verify that this is in 

5 fact neutral and that they met that statutory 

6 requirement.

7 MR. SACHS: Excuse me, please, Amy. This is 

8 Harvey. My memory, which isn't very good anymore, was 

9 that nothing that was compliant under EF would be 

10 rendered noncompliant by the UEF. Rather --

11 MS. SHEPHERD: Right. Like I said, gently 

12 for a non-engineer, like so there must have been -- so 

13 what were the steps in that determination?

14 MR. SACHS: But it doesn't require that we 

15 have the same better than minimum for any particular 

16 model.

17 MS. SHEPHERD: Well, the statute says it has 

18 to be neutral and not have an affect. It doesn't say 

19 neutral. It says it can't have an affect.

20 Now I grant you the one to one, but -- so 

21 I'm just interested in the process. DOE must have 

22 looked at this and said okay, here's how we're 

23 concluding that we met the statutory requirement of 

24 being neutral, and I'm just looking for that 

25 description, again, maybe perhaps with less math just 
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1 for me in under 10 minutes, just the process itself, 

2 the steps that were taken. But sorry, Frank.

3 MR. SACHS: I'm just suggesting that I'm not 

4 sure that we're defining neutral appropriately or too 

5 narrowly in terms of what can be realistically 

6 expected.

7 MR. BROOKMAN: Can someone answer Amy's 

8 question?

9 MS. ARMSTRONG: Let's go to Bruce for a 

10 second. I will.

11 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Bruce.

12 MR. CARNEVALE: Bruce Carnevale. The 

13 statute says the effect on efficiency requirements. 

14 "The conversion factor shall not affect the minimum 

15 efficiency requirements for covered water heaters 

16 otherwise established under this title."

17 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you.

18 MR. CARNEVALE: And I would argue that that 

19 was an impossible task for you guys. How do you do 

20 that when you look at one for one?

21 MS. ARMSTRONG: So I think you saw our 

22 method that Bill presented with the yellow, green, the 

23 yellow translated to the green with the line, which is 

24 our mathematical way of trying to come up with a 

25 standard, a new standard that we believe meets the 
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1 statutory criteria. Obviously we welcome comments to 

2 that, but essentially what we've done is base it on 

3 minimally complying units and it was to safeguard in 

4 theory against that in a conservative way.

5 Now you could argue because we translated 

6 ratings that if the rating translation is off from the 

7 beginning because of lack of data or whatever that we 

8 need to revise our ratings translations. But I'm not 

9 sure you could come up with a -- well, there are a 

10 number of ways you could do this, but looking at the 

11 minimally compliant and moving the deltas and running 

12 a line through that minimally compliant is a way that 

13 -- it's more or less the way you conservatively do 

14 that from a mathematics standpoint.

15 MR. BROOKMAN: A follow-on, Amy.

16 MS. SHEPHERD: Not on a model basis, though. 

17 I mean, I get a percentage of the standard. I was 

18 talking more about about when you developed the 

19 conversion factor, and so you had your tested EF and 

20 you had your tested UEF and you had your conversion 

21 factor. What was that process?

22 MS. ARMSTRONG: Well, I mean, what he just 

23 read was the standard, was the section relevant to the 

24 standard, and so that's what I was addressing.

25 MR. BROOKMAN: Deriving the equation.
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1 MS. ARMSTRONG: Exactly. How do you derive 

2 a standard equation. So --

3 MR. BROOKMAN: Charlie.

4 MR. STEPHENS: I mean, I know it's late, 

5 it's really late in the process here, and I agree with 

6 Amy about, you know, let's get it right if we can 

7 anyway. But it seems to me that the chore here, the 

8 impossible task as you called it, was to match 

9 mathematics to reality. And I don't think if you're 

10 in the process of deriving your mathematics, not using 

11 real numbers, you will never match mathematics to 

12 reality.

13 If you're not using the real, the actual 

14 volume of water in the tank, if you're not using the 

15 actual temperatures in the tank, if you're not using 

16 those things to do your mathematics, then you will 

17 never get reality to match up with your models. And 

18 I'm not giving up on being able to do that better. I 

19 think, you know, if you got some of those things right 

20 you actually might get better concurrence between your 

21 conversion and your measured for any given water 

22 heater, but I don't know the individual 

23 characteristics of the water heaters, so I can't 

24 really help you with that.

25 But the thing is, if you don't do that, 
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1 there will be, like I say, a day of reckoning where a 

2 year from now, when everybody actually has to measure 

3 it, that some units under the conversion factor that 

4 you carefully constructed will not meet the standard.

5 MS. ARMSTRONG: I think like in response to 

6 all these comments, in response to the discussion, in 

7 response to data, we will go back and look at 

8 everything.

9 I mean, when Bill explained what we did for 

10 the conversion for ratings, it was measured value. So 

11 there was a difference between the rating values, and 

12 those are also comparing tested values, single unit 

13 test to single unit test measurements. That's 

14 different than what we did for standards, which is 

15 converting ratings, converting rated values using 

16 conversion equations that were developed based on 

17 tested values. So some of your points have been well 

18 taken, but I think some of them were actually already 

19 done.

20 So like I said, we're going to go back and 

21 look at all this holistically and hopefully, you know, 

22 in conjunction with you guys we can come up with a 

23 revised analysis, but at the end of the day I think 

24 our methods generally hold. So that's kind of where 

25 we are. Do you want to keep going?
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1 MR. BROOKMAN: All right. Frank, yeah, keep 

2 going.

3 MR. STANONIK: All right. So then still on 

4 this one, and as far as the medium usage, products in 

5 the medium usage bin, again, we have questions about 

6 the UEF measured is consistently lower -- now in this 

7 case, let me rephrase that.

8 In the case of the medium usage, the 

9 measured UEF is consistently lower than the measured 

10 EF. The opposite was in the case of the high bin. 

11 And that may be related to the difference between 

12 testing at 55 gallons versus 64. Maybe.

13 But we're also again not seeing any 

14 consistent relationship between the measured and the 

15 converted UEF values. Again, if the conversion as we 

16 look at it is accurate, and again, not perfect, but 

17 there should be some discernible relationship that you 

18 can say it's when X plus or minus something, between 

19 those two values.

20 Similarly, in the case of the measured 

21 first-hour rating values using the UED procedure, 

22 those come out less than the current measured first23 hour rating, but again, no consistent relationship 

24 between the measured and the converted UED first-hour 

25 rating values.
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1 All that is just causing us to say those 

2 conversion factors or calculations just don't seem to 

3 fit or the data's saying it doesn't fit.

4 And before we leave this one let me -- I 

5 will correct this now that I'm looking at my own 

6 paper. Those yellow ones in fact are models today 

7 that cannot be manufactured. They're lower than NAECA 

8 3 minimums. But if you look at the result, if they 

9 were run to the new test, they would have higher 

10 ratings and in fact they would exceed the converted 

11 minimum and they could be made. So in fact you've 

12 brought in -- this proposal would bring in models that 

13 currently have been taken off the market because of 

14 NAECA 3.

15 So let's go to the next slide if we can, 

16 which is going to be the data for tankless models or 

17 instantaneous, whichever. We'll call them tankless. 

18 Same pattern on the numbers as far as what the colors 

19 mean.

20 In this case, probably the two big things 

21 we're seeing is that the same issues, we're just not 

22 seeing the relationship between the measured EF and 

23 the measured UEF. It seems to be inconsistent. And 

24 then likewise, the relationship between the measured 

25 and the converted UEF values, it doesn't seem to be 
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1 let's say jumping out at us. We're just not seeing 

2 how that's working.

3 In this case, we really didn't talk about it 

4 I think, but with tankless, the next one, GPM, which 

5 pretty much are not there because it's pretty 

6 straightforward. If you're heating over a 77 degree 

7 rise, you're going to get a certain GPM. If you're 

8 heating over a 70 degree rise or 67 degree rise, your 

9 GPM just goes up, it's proportional. So that's pretty 

10 straightforward. I don't think there's much problem 

11 there.

12 So then we can go to the next slide, which 

13 is the electric. Now, in this case, first of all, 

14 this electric storage, we're including both the 

15 resistance and heat pump products, and what we're 

16 seeing here is that the measured UEF is usually lower 

17 than the measured EF, certainly for electrical 

18 resistance products, and the measured UEF is less than 

19 both the converted minimum UEF standard and the 

20 converted UEF.

21 So, if you look at the last column here and 

22 if you look at just the electric resistance, all the 

23 models that have a negative there which is the 

24 difference between the measured UEF and the minimum --

25 I'll rephrase that.
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1 All those units would indicate right now 

2 they're not hitting the minimum or at least suggest 

3 they're not hitting the minimum. They've come in 

4 below the converted minimum. And so that's part of 

5 our concern that, again, the conversion certainly when 

6 it comes to electrics is over -- is not converting the 

7 minimum standard properly. It's in fact increasing 

8 the stringency.

9 MR. BOROS: Frank, you may want to point out 

10 the low bin is especially impacted. There's only two 

11 data points there, but the low bin is really off to 

12 electric resistance models.

13 MR. STANONIK: Yeah. As far as the minimum 

14 absolutely, because you're going from testing an 

15 electric water heater that was providing 64 gallons to 

16 providing 38 gallons, and there should be a -- well, 

17 the tests show there is a huge difference in the 

18 measured UEF. You know, you can predict that without 

19 ever running the test because you just changed how 

20 long the resistance --

21 MR. STEPHENS: And the temperature too.

22 MR. STANONIK: A third less, right? More 

23 than a third less. Almost a half less. Yeah.

24 So, as Joe said, in the low ones it's 

25 particularly I would say obvious that the converted 
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1 minimums is too high.

2 And then in the case of the heat pumps, 

3 again, the difference between the measured UEF and the 

4 measured --

5 MS. ARMSTRONG: No, go back.

6 MR. STANONIK: Yeah, it's still there.

7 Is this the electronic equivalent of the 

8 hook that comes and drags you off the stage or -- all 

9 right. So, in the case again with the heat pumps, 

10 we're just seeing inconsistent results between the 

11 measured EF and the measured UEF, and as one of our 

12 members pointed out, yeah, we actually have some 

13 higher efficiency heat pumps, you know, 3.1 or 

14 whatever, and we think, again, that's an area DOE 

15 probably could look at some more models, and hopefully 

16 we can get some more models too.

17 All right. And then the last -- that is the 

18 last slide I think. Oh, no. Residential duty. Okay. 

19 No. How could I forget residential duty? Yeah. 

20 This one, it actually is pretty significant. Let me 

21 flip my notes here.

22 So, in all of these, not surprisingly, a 

23 high usage bin, and the measured UEF is higher than 

24 what the calculation would convert the UEF to in all 

25 cases, and it looks like the magnitude of the 
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1 difference actually has some relationship to a 

2 combination of the thermal efficiency of the model and 

3 the smaller volume.

4 But the biggest thing here again is all the 

5 UEF measured values are quite a bit above what the 

6 calculation is, which if you want to, you know, in a 

7 sense -- well, that's really saying the converted 

8 calculation is underestimating what these models will 

9 test out at when you do the UEF test, which one could 

10 say is reducing the standard I guess if you want to 

11 look at it that way.

12 MR. STEPHENS: You don't have the thermal 

13 efficiency --

14 MR. STANONIK: We have that data, yeah, 

15 measured in. They'll get it.

16 You know, I can answer some other questions 

17 if you have them about our data here, but as DOE said, 

18 we certainly have additional information that we can 

19 provide to help you do the analysis.

20 The other thing I will -- well, two things, 

21 since we're trying to conclude here I think. Two 

22 things. We still very much want a direct answer on 

23 the question of, I have models certified to DOE today 

24 that meet the April 15 standard. Units of those 

25 models manufactured after July 13, are they considered 
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1 to comply with the converted UEF standards?

2 MS. ARMSTRONG: What's the other thing you 

3 want to know?

4 MR. STANONIK: Well, the other thing is 

5 again, I mean, in concluding, we still think that that 

6 July 13 date has to move because we don't see how you 

7 can get the conversion factor final rule done in time, 

8 and as I think Amy said, we believe that it certainly 

9 is not locked in stone that it has to be July 13. I 

10 know the statute says, but things have slid in the 

11 past and we think the best solution would be that the 

12 implementation, the revised FTC labels would coincide 

13 with the effective date of the new test procedure. Is 

14 that accurate?

15 MR. BROOKMAN: Karen?

16 MS. MEYERS: Can DOE staff give us an update 

17 on where they're at in a response to the AHRI petition 

18 on rated volume?

19 MS. ARMSTRONG: Sure. We have gotten the 

20 comments. We are still considering the comments. We 

21 have not taken the next action, whatever that will be. 

22 We are still trying to decide exactly what our next 

23 action is going to be. And so that's the current 

24 status update.

25 MR. STANONIK: Is there a schedule set?
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1 MS. ARMSTRONG: There's not a definitive 

2 schedule set. I know that there are active 

3 discussions that have been ongoing and are ongoing 

4 right now.

5 MR. BROOKMAN: Any additional final 

6 comments, closing remarks as we move toward closure 

7 here? Joe?

8 MR. BOROS: I just have one question. It's 

9 Joe Boros. AHRI submitted data which I believe, 

10 Frank, this is more than 100 sets of data, so it 

11 represents more data than what was used to establish 

12 the NOPR. What's DOE going to do with this data? Are 

13 they going to recalculate and provide additional 

14 feedback to us? What's the next steps and process 

15 with the data?

16 MS. ARMSTRONG: So we're definitely going to 

17 use the data. I think as a first level we need some 

18 additional information from you guys. So first off, 

19 I'll provide a template to Frank. Hopefully tomorrow 

20 he can disseminate that to you guys and get it back to 

21 us hopefully next week? I mean, it shouldn't be that 

22 difficult, right?

23 MR. STANONIK: Yes. Yep, yep.

24 MS. ARMSTRONG: And so yes, we're going to 

25 include that data in our re-analysis.
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1 I think what's important to us, Frank, 

2 something to note is it was hard for us to tell if you 

3 were testing some units more than once in the data set 

4 you submitted or if they were distinctly all different 

5 units. The reason for that is because, at least of 

6 the three characteristics you gave us, they were 

7 identical. So it was hard for us to tell if they were 

8 all completely different models or if they were, you 

9 know, models that were the same basic models but 

10 slightly different in non-efficiency attributes. So 

11 that's the type of stuff I think some of these 

12 additional characteristics would get to or if they 

13 were just the same unit tested multiple times.

14 MR. STANONIK: Right. Okay.

15 MS. ARMSTRONG: But long story short, we are 

16 going to revise the analysis. Now whether we're going 

17 to put that analysis out for additional comment or 

18 whether we're going to go final with it, I don't think 

19 we know yet. It depends on what that whole re20 analysis process, what it shows.

21 That being said, if you guys as an industry 

22 and other entities would like an additional 

23 opportunity to discuss things with us or continue that 

24 dialogue, I think we can find a way to do it, but it 

25 needs to be in a pretty timely manner.
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1 MR. STANONIK: Frank Stanonik, AHRI. Just 

2 quickly in answer to that question, certainly the 

3 tests that were done as part of our program signal 

4 test unit. We mixed in data members provided. Some 

5 of that might be repetitive tests on the same model or 

6 same unit. We'll identify them.

7 MS. ARMSTRONG: And I think some of them are 

8 also going to be units that we tested. So I know that 

9 you may not share manufacturer model-specific 

10 characteristics, but I will say to the extent that 

11 manufacturers want to better understand if we tested 

12 some of their specific products and what those results 

13 might be, we have ways of disclosing that that are not 

14 part of the public record, because we're not going to 

15 put full test reports in the document on every unit we 

16 tested. But it would go two ways. You would have to 

17 be willing to also share with us that data on that 

18 specific unit.

19 MR. BROOKMAN: Harvey.

20 MR. SACHS: Several things I want to say in 

21 closing remarks. First of all, I think all of us owe 

22 each other a bit of an apology that everyone involved 

23 in the sausage-making for AEMTCA probably 

24 underestimated the effort that would be required to do 

25 this conversion process. I realize that points 
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1 fingers back at some of us on the advocate side as 

2 well as some manufacturers and others.

3 In that context, I really want to say how 

4 much I appreciate all the hard work that both DOE 

5 consultants and manufacturers with AHRI have done to 

6 try to get this right.

7 With those things said, it seems to me that 

8 there are two paths forward, and I haven't been able 

9 to think of a third path that would be at all 

10 responsive to the time demands, the effort demands, 

11 and everything else that everyone is under.

12 One of them is a process we've spent a lot 

13 of time on today, which is to keep massaging, keep 

14 trying to reduce the variability and understand the 

15 anomalies in the conversion process, to get a single 

16 representation which clearly would be an ideal thing 

17 for consumers.

18 The other path, which I think may be 

19 possible, but I could be wrong, is say okay, this is a 

20 transition time between now and next year in May. The 

21 least confusion might be to allow continued 

22 representation in EF and TE units for existing models 

23 and require UEF for all models certified after the 

24 date certain, July 13, recognizing that this will mean 

25 there are two labels out there. There is the 
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1 possibility of confusion, but it will go away. And it 

2 may be the least bad approach that is available to us 

3 now.

4 So I'm just suggesting that we might have a 

5 choice and it might be that that's the less painful 

6 choice. ACEEE does not endorse that position at this 

7 time.

8 (Laughter.)

9 MR. BROOKMAN: Final comments?

10 (No response.)

11 MR. BROOKMAN: Okay. Then turning it back 

12 to Ashley for how to submit written comments.

13 MS. ARMSTRONG: So you guys all know how to 

14 submit written comments at this point in time. The 

15 comment period closes on June 15. I don't think DOE 

16 plans to extend that further at least as of now.

17 That being said, we would like to thank you 

18 guys for coming today and participating and for all 

19 the feedback. We will work hard to do some revisions 

20 to the analysis and see where that lands us. So safe 

21 travels home.

22 MR. BROOKMAN: Thank you all.

23 ALL: Thanks.

24 (Whereupon, at 1:44 p.m., the meeting in the 

25 above-entitled matter was concluded.)
173 

REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE 

DOCKET NO.: N/A 

CASE TITLE: The Test Procedures for Residential and 

Certain Commercial Water Heaters --

Conversion Factors Rulemaking Meeting 

HEARING DATE: May 28, 2015 

LOCATION: Washington, D.C. 

I hereby certify that the proceedings and 

evidence are contained fully and accurately on the 

tapes and notes reported by me at the hearing in the 

above case before the U.S. Department of Energy, 

Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy. 

Date: May 28, 2015 

Linda D. 

Official Reporter 

Heritage Reporting Corporation 

Suite 206 

1220 L Street, N.W. 

Washington, D.C. 20005-4018 

Heritage Reporting Corporation 

(202) 628-4888