Why should you go with AHRI (formally known as ARI) certified products?
Innergy tech inc. has been part of the original group of companies who contributed in the establishment of the ARHI standard 1060 with the philosophy of building new guidelines for an industry in which the deliverable (heat recovery performance) is hardly measurable in the field for most of our customers. We believe it is our responsibility to inform our customers of the major difference between ARHI certified, and self-certified products. While it has become common thinking in the industry to consider the two as being comparable, the later could not be farther from the truth.
In reality, even the slightest variations in some of the performance test parameters can lead to substantially different end results. It is therefore easy to understand that such small test differences can easily lead to claimed, whether it was done intentionally or not, higher system performances.
What is AHRI (formally known as ARI)?
The Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) http://www.ahrinet.org/ is the trade association representing manufacturers of more than 90 percent of the air conditioning, heating and commercial refrigeration equipment installed in North America. AHRI is an internationally recognized leader in developing standards for and certifying the performance of these products.
How to earn the AHRI Performance Certified™ seal?
To earn the AHRI Performance Certified™ seal, a product must go through continuous and extensive laboratory testing in order to verify the manufacturer’s claimed performance ratings. Furthermore, through its production, units of the certified product are randomly selected and evaluated using procedures stipulated in the applicable ARI standards to certify that they meet the manufacturers' published performance ratings. A test failure requires re-rating or ceasing production of the failed product.
Why should you buy AHRI certified products?
By developing standards in an industry where the deliverable (heat recovery performance) is very difficult to measure in the field, one of the most important role of the AHRI association is to protect this industry’s customers by insuring them the products they buy will perform as designed.
In other words, buying AHRI certified components is the only option you have for guaranteed performances.
About other independent certification
In our opinion, the ARI association exists for one main reason and that is to protect the customers. To our knowledge, the ARI association is the only one that can effectively provide valuable, independent third-party verification of HVACR manufacturers’ effectiveness and performance claims. An important word to remember here is valuable since this is where most people are wrong in believing that “independent” inherently means valuable. In truth, the word valuable can only be used with products rated on a uniform basis, which is never the case when using other “independent” parties.
How to verify if a product is AHRI certified
The AHRI certified product directory is an invaluable tool which is used to compare AHRI certified products with each others. The air-to-air recovery products’ directory can be accessed through the following link:
http://www.ahridirectory.org/ahriDirectory/pages/erv/defaultSearch.aspx
Once there, the AHRI official products’ performance sheets or certificates can easily be obtained by performing a search for the desired manufacturer and model number. Of course, these certificates can be used to verify performances but most importantly enables easy comparison of different AHRI certified products.