Welcome
Welcome to the February issue of the WERS E-news. With the changes to the WERS website happening late last year, updates to ratings and the development of the stars for the windows has been non stop.

The WERS database currently has around 2500 windows rated and certifed to NFRC procedures. There have been another 2500 rated which are currently in the process of going through the NFRC audit. In Janurary I was certifed as an NFRC simulator. WERS has applied to the AFRC to be the offical Audit house for energy ratings. All WERS energy ratings will be audited in house and assigned stars and percentage improvements. The rated products will be uploaded to the WERS website in the certified products section and all results will be added into the database for the search engine.

The AWA has employed a new staff member to help with the the running of WERS. Vern Nicolas commenced at the beginning of February through the UWS co-operative programs for a six month internship. Vern will be helping with the running of WERS, the website development and maintanance, and member support, Welcome Vern. Feel free to email Vern and introduce yourself. info@wers.net

If you have any suggestions, feedback or comments about the site, newsletter, or wish to submit an article, please feel free to send me an email.

Mike Palin
WERS Administrator
mike.palin@wers.net




AEP and Stars for WERS
The AEP is the Annual Energy Performance project that was commmisioned by the AWA to generate a calculator for developing stars and percentage improvements. The work was completed by Dr Peter Lyons, www.fenestralia.com and has been peer reviewed by PC Thomas and Angelo DelSante.

The AEP calculator takes three values of the window, U-value, SHGC and Air Infiltration to determine heating and cooling stars and percentage improvements. The stars give an easy comparison for the consumer without getting too involved in the scientific side of the results.

Previously WERS was a rating system that was based on 5 stars, with 5 stars obviously being the best window. We started to get windows rated that came in at 5.5 and 6 stars, however with the previous cap of 5 stars they weren't rewarded. With the introduction of the new AEP it was time to move to a 10 Star rating system. This moves WERS inline with AccuRate which is also now using a 10 star scale. The new AEP cannot be outdated, the theroretical 10 star heating and cooling windows were generated by the AGO to provide extremes on both heating and cooling. The perfect 10 star heating window has a U-value of 0.1 and a SHGC of 1.0 meaning that it has an extremely high insulation value yet allows all heat from the sun to come through. The 10 star cooling window has a U-value of 0.1 and a SHGC of 0.0.

For a full artilce on the AEP writen by Dr Peter Lyons, look out for the next AWA Windows Newsletter which will be on your desk in the coming weeks. The WERS website has updated tables and notices about the AEP and Star ratings. Click on the thumnails below to view in full size.