ARLINGTON, Va. — With a continued focus across the United States on reducing energy use, the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) notes that pool owners should be aware that heat pump pool and spa heaters bearing the AHRI Certified mark have energy efficiency ratings verified by a third party.

“Basing the size of a pool heater on unreliable performance ratings could impact the pool’s temperature, length of your swimming season, and amount of time it takes to heat the pool,” said AHRI President Stephen Yurek. “To provide an assurance of product performance to their customers, manufacturers of these products last year launched a voluntary performance certification program through AHRI to have their products’ efficiency ratings scrutinized by an independent third party.”

According to AHRI, manufacturers who have their equipment certified must maintain tight and rigid quality control practices in their product manufacturing operations because AHRI randomly selects their products and tests them annually. Manufacturers who don’t participate in AHRI’s certification program may only perform a one-time test on a single model to determine their performance ratings.

If a model when tested does not achieve the manufacturer’s efficiency claims, the efficiency ratings for the entire product line must be changed and those ratings are listed in the AHRI Directory of Certified Product Performance at www.ahridirectory.org.

“We’re pleased to have seven heat pump pool/spa heater manufacturers participating in our certification program, which was launched less than a year ago,” said Yurek. “Our goal is to achieve 100 percent participation by all manufacturers to allow consumers to make fair product comparisons. When you see the AHRI Certified mark on this product, you know what you are getting.”

Publication date: 06/22/2009