Different Types of Plumbing Pipes
When you’re shopping for new HVAC equipment and home appliances, fixtures, and electronics, how can you be sure you’re buying quality merchandise? These days, when it comes to such products, “quality” applies to both performance and energy efficiency. Regarding the latter factor — how well the product uses or saves energy — the Energy Star label and EnergyGuide label both provide essential information about a product’s energy efficiency. Both are the result of a program coordinated between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy.
Energy Star Label
This familiar blue label can be found on a wide range of energy-using products that meet minimum standards set by the federal government. These include water heaters, TVs, refrigerators, A/Cs and heat pumps, windows, and insulation, among many others. An Energy Star-certified product must achieve the following:
Provide substantial energy savings throughout the country.
Come with features and performance demanded by customers. In effect, energy efficiency can’t come at the cost of other characteristics of quality.
If the Energy Star product costs more than a similar product with less energy efficiency, the product must provide energy savings that more than compensate for that extra cost.
Technology in a qualifying product must be available from more than one manufacturer.
The product’s energy use must be measurable and verifiable.
EnergyGuide Label
The EnergyGuide label differs from the Energy Star logo in that it doesn’t signify a superior product. Rather, the EnergyGuide label – affixed by manufacturers to most appliances – provides hard data about that product’s energy use, as compared to other, similar products. This includes the product's annual energy consumption and operating costs.Information on the label includes:
Maker, model number, and appliance size.
Estimated yearly operating cost, based on the average of electricity costs throughout the country.
Whether the product has qualified for the aforementioned Energy Star.
Estimated consumption of electricity every year.
Key features of this particular model class.
For more information on the Energy Star and EnergyGuide labels, please contact us at Air Assurance, providing quality HVAC services in the Broken Arrow area.
Our goal is to help educate our customers in the Tulsa and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma area about energy and home comfort issues (specific to HVAC systems). Credit/Copyright Attribution: “Public Domain/Wikipedia”