On Feb 13, 6:34*pm, "Only Just" ifixit2@hotmail(dot)com wrote:
"Donna Ohl, Grady Volunteer Coordinator" wrote in
...





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..._id=16637&p_ta....

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.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I don't believe it's accurate to say these tests were designed by the
industry. The manufacturers of water heaters certainly gave there
opinions and suggestions, but the actual test standards were arrived
at by the EPA. And different manufacturers have different opinions
of how the various water heaters should be tested. They were not even
close to being all in agreement.

However, I do agree with most of what you posted. Tests have to
assume some type of typical usage to come up with a way to do the
tests. And just like with cars, your mileage may vary, especially
if your usage is substantially different than the tests. And once
the tests are set in place, manufacturers will start to tweak there
designs to play the spec game. That's why I wouldn't go crazy trying
to figure this out to the last decimal place.

When I needed a new water heater, I went with another 50 gal unit,
which was what I already had. I did look at the energy efficieny
ratings and concluded that for my usage an average unit would be
fine. I went down to HD, bought it and installed it in one day. It
has a eff rating of .56, and cost me I think about $300 7 years ago.
I wasn't gonna lose sleep worrying over whether a .58 or .61 was gonna
make enough difference to be worth it.

I did get a 10 year warranty, which came in handy about 2 years ago.
The thermocouple went and State, who was the manufacturer, had a new
one here in 2 days for free.