"Donna Ohl, Grady Volunteer Coordinator" wrote in
message ...
On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 22:14:39 +1100, Only Just wrote:
This is all very good but can you trust the figures given by the
manufacturers as these are often derived by engineer calculations and
marketing guru's and are manipulated to suit their agenda.

Hi Only Just,

I *think* you *can* trust these numbers (FHR & ER) ... but I'm just going
by the written facts. You have the experience I don't have.

The facts are that there are *independent* labs paid to *verify* that
these
FHR and ER numbers are accurate, for example, OSHA recognizes ITSNA whose
numbers I quoted throughout the latter half of this thread.

http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owad...RAL_R EGISTER

Gama says, as of December 12, 2007, "Intertek Testing Services of
Cortland,
New York (http://www.intertek.com/) has been retained as the program
administrator and *independent* testing laboratory responsible for
conducting efficiency *verification* tests on water heaters" (emphasis
mine).

If Intertek is truly "independent", and if they do randomly select units
as
their product literature says, then I think you *can* trust these numbers.

Donna

The reason I brought up about the tests is that I have been informed that
the manufactures of refrigerators here in Aus have been using "Energy Star"
ratings for quite a while, The way they now measure these results is also
based on "Peak" start-up current so now the manufactures stagger the start
of all the motors in a refrig, eg, compressor starts then after a set period
the inner fan will start then the outside fan will start thus reducing that
start-up peak so it "Reduces" the energy rating so making it a more
desirable unit for the "Greenies" and the power saving conscious people but
only hiding the true power consumed, Also there has been numerous letters
written into the newspaper tech here about people not getting the same fuel
economy in their new vehicle that they bought and the result that they were
replied to was that they are only figures supplied by the manufacturer that
some test results came up with so they can compare different vehicles as set
by an industry standard. Remember that these tests are designed by the
industry and no matter who carries out the same tests providing that they
are using the same standards and criteria they will also receive the same
results to match.
Justy.