ARLINGTON, Va. - After nearly 50 years of being applied to more than 150 million ARI performance-certified central air conditioners and heat pumps, commercial air conditioners and heat pumps, and other air conditioning and refrigeration systems and components, the board of directors of the Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute (ARI) has approved the redesign of ARI's Product Performance Certification Seal.

"For almost 50 years, one of the strengths of ARI has been its product performance certification programs," said William G. Sutton, ARI president.

"Growing from a single unitary air conditioner equipment certification program in 1959 to 23 certification programs today, the ARI certification seal assures customers that the products they are buying - those used in homes, businesses, factories, and all structures in between - will perform as claimed."

The new ARI Product Performance Certification seal was approved at the Nov. 13, 2005, board meeting and became effective on Jan. 1, 2006. Manufacturers will have a year to transition to using the new ARI Certification seal on their ARI-certified products.

ARI certification programs are industry developed, driven, and managed. They are voluntary and not the result of a governmental mandate.

Their value derives from marketplace recognition of ARI's certification seal. ARI members recognize that a program that provides a sound engineering basis for rating the efficiency of HVACR equipment benefits manufacturers and consumers, allows product comparison, and provides incentive to manufacturers to improve efficiency in order to gain market share.

ARI has been administering its industry-directed voluntary programs since 1959, when ARI published its first directory of unitary products. With only 26 participants, the directory was only 19 pages and had only 600 products listed. Today ARI publishes an online version of its directories at www.ari.org/cert. The current listing has over 200 participants and over 150,000 products listed.

For more information, visit www.ari.org/cert or contact Henry Hwong, ARI director of product sections, at hhwong@ari.org.

Publication date: 01/16/2006