Minnesota PHCC Contractor May/June 2018

FEATURE
NEW HVAC SYSTEM TOOL
REVEALS ‘BEST’ OPTIONS EARLY ON
By Dan Vastyan
For many years, HVAC
industry professionals have
lamented the inadequacy of
efficiency ratings to evaluate
different system types equitably.
When commercial HVAC equipment
is laboratory-tested and assigned an
efficiency rating, water source heat
pumps may as well be apples and VRF
systems oranges. Obviously, boilers
are peaches, centrifugal chillers are
bananas and cooling towers become
watermelons.
Suffice it to say, the cornucopia of
efficiency rating systems (EER, IEER,
SEER, AFUE, COP, etc.) makes the
task of comparing real-world, asapplied
system efficiencies and life
cycle costs a lengthy, arduous task.
That is, until recently.
Members of the Hydronics Industry Alliance-Commercial
(HIA-C), a committee of the Radiant Professionals Alliance,
have recognized the importance of creating a common
denominator among all HVAC system types. This would allow
building owners, mechanical engineers and design/build
contractors to accurately compare real-world performance
in a specific building. Ideally, this could be done in the early
design phase, even before ground is broken. This idea emerged
about five years ago and the software has now come to fruition.
Available for free, the Building Efficiency System Tool (BEST)
is a commercial building total HVAC system comparison tool
that now solves the challenge of accurately comparing different
styles of HVAC systems.
With the very simplest of inputs, BEST compares the energy
performance, first cost, life cycle cost and more for all major
types of HVAC systems and is broadly applicable to most
commercial buildings anywhere on the continent. All BEST
outputs are represented in operating dollar figures, making
comparison easy.
BEST does this quickly and accurately. It compares up to
four system types in a matter of minutes, instead of hours or
days. The software was not created to replace programs like
EnergyPlus required by some rating agencies. BEST efficiently
narrows the choices often run in EnergyPlus, significantly
reducing design time.
“While different types of HVAC equipment are subject to
various rating systems, the bigger issue is that they’re all
tested to different standards,” said Greg Cunniff, manager of
application engineering at Taco Comfort Solutions.
“The testing parameters, lab procedures and resulting efficiency
scores for some types of equipment are relatively comparable
to their real-world performance,” he said. “For other systems,
the discrepancy between tested and as-applied performance is
surprisingly large. Owners, engineers and contractors needed
a tool that refines the choices and compares all technologies on
common ground.”
Free BEER
In addition to creating a powerful tool for design professionals,
the HIA-C is hoping that BEST offers a seat at the table for all
its members.
The HIA-C is a diverse organization comprised of commercial
manufacturers from the United States, Mexico and Canada.
Through collaboration, even amongst staunch competitors,
the most comprehensive comparison solution emerged.
“With BEST, professionals can rapidly analyze all the realworld
HVAC options to determine the system that best meets
budgetary and performance requirements,” said Rick Bostian,
HIA-C chairman and business development manager at
WaterFurnace International.
“In its most basic comparison function, the user only inputs
10 May - June 2018 | MN PHCC | www.mnphcc.org