Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy April 2, 2014 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This notice announces receipt of and publishes the Empire Comfort Systems Inc. (Empire) petition for waiver from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) test procedure for determining the energy consumption of vented home heating equipment. The waiver request pertains to Empire's specified models of condensing-type vented heaters. The existing test procedure does not apply to condensing heaters. Empire asks that it be permitted to use the DOE test procedure proposed in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) for Direct Heating Equipment and Pool Heaters published in the Federal Register on October 24, 2013 (78 FR 63410), as an alternate test procedure to account for the energy consumption of its condensing-type direct heating equipment (DHE) models. DOE notes that only one of the basic model numbers submitted in the petition is a covered product subject to the test methods for vented home heating equipment. Today's notice also grants Empire an interim waiver from the DOE test procedure applicable to direct heating equipment for the one basic model number properly included in the petition, subject to use of the alternative test procedure set forth in this notice. DOE solicits comments, data, and information concerning Empire's petition and the suggested alternate test procedure.