| From the WERS Administrator |
Welcome to the first WERS E-news for 2009. WERS hit the ground running in 2009 with:
- New ratings being added to the database on a weekly basis both residentially and commercially
- Section J Commercial training
- Sustainable Windows Alliance testing
- ongoing web development to make WERS an even more consumer friendly tool.
In December of 2008 the commercial section of the WERS web site became active, with many members providing custom energy ratings for their products. Late last year we also developed, in consultation with energy raters and the commercial sub committee a series of "Generic" commercial ratings which were released on the 5th January. The generics are available for use by WERS members for shop front applications. The values can be viewed here if you require a password, please contact Mike Palin
The Section J training is a joint training session with ABSA and presented by David Howard. The first of these sessions was run in Sydney on the 12th February and was a huge success. We under estimated the demand for this training and as the numbers grew to an amazing 80 people for one day we were forced to run two sessions. The next training will be running in Brisbane and Melbourne on the 25th and 26th of February respectively.
The Sustainable Window Alliance (SWA) is a joint project with the AWA, AGGA, SV and Viridian to support the effect of high performance residential windows in Australia. As a separate project but along the same lines the AWA have been running simulations and creating algorithms to determine the star bands for WERS windows used in various Australian Climates. The project is still in the early stages but the results so far are very interesting and will be further analysed to prepare the Australian Window industry as energy efficiency stringency increases.
A useful aspect to this project is the concept of creating a site that has similar characteristics to the US Efficient Windows site. The Efficient Windows site allows users to input the climate zone that applies to them and it creates a list of suitable windows and energy consumption. The data from the AWA project can achieve a similar result, that is, the user can pick a location, a house style and even a star band they wish to achieve and the site will create a list of suitable windows. Whilst this is simply a concept at this stage it would be great to get some feedback on the concept.
Mike Palin
WERS Supervisor |
| Frequently Asked Questions |
I have an energy report that states a "thermally Improved" frame, How do I go about certifying this?
The term "Thermally Improved" was developed in the ANAC days of energy rating when there weren't as many custom ratings available. It used to be defined as having a frame alone U value of 8.0 W/m2-K. As we moved to NFRC and the BCA now calls Whole of Window values, its not possible to define the frame value alone. This should only come up when using 1st Generation rating software using ANAC data, to get around this we are able to provide the frame values of the system if they were rated at ANAC. We don't make this freely available, if you require the data, please contact Mike Palin |
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February 2009 |
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| New Members |
Nicco Joinery
Kingsgrove, NSW
Designer Windows
Dandenong, Victoria |
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