When the news dropped with the announcement that Jim Benney
was leaving NFRC, I was curious if there was going to be another part to the
puzzle played. Sure enough there was
with news that the NFRC was “renewing” their commitment to the commercial
fenestration industry with a certified rating system. The whole story made me chuckle and also made
me think of my old pal Greg Carney who’s probably laughing uproariously up in
heaven over it. There’s a ton I can go
into, especially since I have been banging this drum for 10 years or so. But I’ll just say a few main things… First
and foremost the industry needs a quality rating system. We’ve never been against a system, just the
way these folks went about it. We need a
logical one that makes sense and provides the results and details that everyone
involved depends on. It’s a part of the
commercial landscape more and more. And
we need a program that is not what’s best or easiest (or biggest money maker)
for the test labs or NFRC, but one that’s best for the products involved and
industry at large. (Remember NFRC for
years thought commercial and residential industries were virtually the same.) In
any case, ease of use and logic was something we hammered on for years during
the process and were summarily ignored.
So it’s going to be interesting to see what this new collaboration will
be. Will it be a true
collaboration? I have my doubts as the
same people who ramrodded the old system through are still in major positions
of power on the NFRC Board. Regardless I
will have an open mind, because it is something that is needed. Second, when did the “partners” listed become
actual partners in the process? So all
of a sudden three major organizations in our industry are now back in the process. I have to assume it was news to them. All will do what is right for the industry I
believe, but I also found it odd that NFRC did not mention a few others that
had involvement back in the day including the National Glass Association. I guess they missed the blogs and articles
their Ex-CEO would provide for Glass Magazine eh? I bring this up because how do you get to
true collaboration without all of the main players?
Last, personally I feel vindicated in the fact that I warned
(along with many others of course) that the current program would not work, and
it sure looks like we were right. I took
(and still take in some areas) a ton of abuse over my role in this effort but
in the end my goal has and will always be to look out for the best interests of
our industry….
Elsewhere…
-- OK from one worry to another. To my friends in the Pacific Northwest… I
sure as heck hope this article on an earthquake hitting your part of the world
is wrong. Really frightening read…
-- Interesting news via the Dodge Momentum Index. It trended down in June and has been
relatively flat all year. This has been
flying in the face of other indexes and also just the overall business
climate. Especially the current put in
place spending, which has been tremendous and has a future-facing component to
it. The new ABI is due out this coming
Wednesday the 22nd, so we’ll see what they say on the process.
-- Last this week… which of you awesome glaziers, fabricators,
manufacturers and suppliers will be working on the worlds largest “NetZero
Plus” retrofit building in Los Angeles?
The Electrical Training Institute in LA will be 142,000 square feet and
is being promoted as upon completion the largest NetZero Plus building in the
US. They’re calling it the “intelligent building of the future” so I surely can’t wait to see what glass and glazing
products are involved here.
LINKS of the WEEK
-- I am so anti fireworks it’s not even funny. Maybe I am an old fuddy duddy but I see no
value in them and stories like this are more and more common every year.
-- Like the ending of Caddyshack but for real. Wow.
VIDEO of the WEEK
So there’s a snow farm in Boston and that’s where 70 feet of
the stuff went after the brutal winter there… and now a time lapse of it
melting over the past few months. Wild.
1 comment:
Max,
We share your feelings about the NFRC. Their CMAST "commercial program" is OK in theory, but in practice, it is SLOW, and gets worse with every update. I can only imagine how badly it will perform when more manufacturers get into it!
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