ATLANTA - The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) and the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) are revising ANSI/ASHRAE/IESNA Standard 100-2006, Energy Conservation in Existing Buildings, to provide greater guidance and a more comprehensive approach to the retrofit of existing buildings for increased energy efficiency. According to ASHRAE, only 2 percent of construction projects are for new buildings, while 86 percent of construction dollars go into renovation of the existing building stock.

The revised standard provides comprehensive and detailed descriptions of the processes and procedures for the energy-efficiency improvements of existing residential and commercial buildings, in order to achieve greater energy efficiency.

The standard addresses major and minor modifications for both residential and commercial buildings, and single- and multiple-activity buildings with variable occupancy periods and identifies an energy target for 53 building types in 16 climate zones/subzones.

The revised standard also identifies energy-efficiency requirements for buildings without energy targets - mostly industrial, agricultural, data centers, and special laboratories - and provides multiple levels of compliance.

ASHRAE’s advisory public review process is designed to seek suggestions for new, unusual, or potentially controversial elements of a proposed standard that the committee feels would benefit from increased public scrutiny. Unlike ASHRAE’s formal call for public comments process, comments received under advisory public reviews are supportive and do not need to be resolved.

The standard is open for an advisory public review until May 25, 2011.

For more information, visit www.ashrae.org/publicreviews.

Publication date:05/09/2011