DOE Reschedules Meeting; Releases Preliminary Door and Skylight Criteria

The Department of Energy (DOE) has announced that its stakeholder meeting, originally scheduled for May 22, has been postponed until August 13. The delay is a result of the DOE’s initial energy savings analysis for 2009, 2012 and 2015 criteria, during which the department determined it needed to conduct additional cost and feasibility research before establishing the 2012 and 2015 criteria.

In addition, the DOE has completed its initial analysis of technical and cost information for Energy Star-qualified doors and skylights, and has put together preliminary Energy Star criteria for these.

For doors, DOE officials say it is promoting separate criteria for swinging doors that capture the maximum energy savings possible and are compatible with the two-step manufacturing process.

In addition, the DOE is proposing separate criteria for skylights.

Mary Louise Pace, technical sales for Circle Redmont Inc., a skylight manufacturer in Mel-bourne, Fla., says she doesn’t expect the skylight criteria to have a drastic effect.

“To follow the DOE guidelines, skylight companies will have to be a little more selective about the make-up of the glass in their products,” she says. “The glass industry has an abundance of readily available brands of insulating and high-performance glass. In fact, most tinted and low-E insulated glass units meet the suggested U-values, so this shouldn’t be too difficult to follow.”

DWM
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