A New System Isn’t a Commissioned System
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November 18’s Codes and Coffee webinar will dig into a newly-released data mountain built from 200,000+ field diagnostic tests. Here’s the first assumption it challenges.
Quick gut check. A crew sets a new high-efficiency system. Good brand, AHRI-rated, startup sheet filled out and signed. What are the odds the system is delivering what’s on the nameplate?
Got a number? Hold onto it. We’ll come back to it.
While you’re holding it, meet the close-enough gremlin. Every company has one riding along in a truck somewhere. He’s the voice at the end of a long install day that says, “It’s new equipment. It’s fine. Write ’within spec’ and let’s go home.” The tech means well. He’s also tired and behind schedule, and so the readings that would check his math (and the system) never make it onto the sheet.
The Assumption We All Make
Here’s the logic most of us run on: Equipment is engineered, lab-tested and AHRI-certified. If the box is good, the system is good.
And the box usually is good. (Really. That’s part of the point.) Today’s equipment is better engineered and more efficient than it has ever been.
But an AHRI rating describes the equipment on a test stand, at standard conditions. It can’t see the attic. It doesn’t know about the undersized return, the filter rack somebody added later, the line set that runs longer than the install manual planned for, or the charge that got set on a mild afternoon and called good.
What shipped from the factory and what’s running in the house are two different things. The first one was tested and comes with a certified rating. The second one gets “the way we’ve always done it” and only maybe a few measurements from startup.
What the Field Data Says
measureQuick’s new 2025 Field Commissioning Report is based on information gathered from more than 200,000 diagnostic tests. In field terms, one tech running one test every working day, five days a week, all year, would need about 800 years to collect it.
The data comes from contractors who use smart tools to measure real systems and is screened for data quality before any rate was calculated. That means this data was collected by techs from the higher end of the field. If these crews have problems, other techs are likely in worse shape.
Now, about those odds: the number of systems delivering nameplate that you were holding. Among cooling tests with a delivered-capacity reading, only about half delivered 90% or more of their nominal tonnage.
Before you blame the box: nominal tonnage overstates what equipment is certified to deliver. So the report also checked systems that matched a current AHRI certification. Against that certified rating, the average system delivered 99%. The equipment, on average, does what it’s rated to do.
The spread around that average is the story. In the report, it lines up with what gets set in the field: charge, airflow and static pressure.
Delivered capacity against nominal tonnage in 109,805 cooling tests, at field conditions. Measured against certified AHRI ratings instead, matched systems averaged close to their rating.
Where Setup Slips
Here’s the thing about the close-enough gremlin: he’s working without the measurement. Few techs would write “within spec” next to a static reading of 0.9 inches. The gremlin wins when that line on the sheet stays blank.
Static pressure (and a blower table) tells us so much about the first key to system performance, and it’s one your crew can check with a manometer and two test ports.
The field data report measures refrigerant charge and airflow with the same discipline, and the episode will walk through what it found.
The Fix Is Measurement
More paperwork won’t beat the gremlin. A startup sheet filled out in the truck looks exactly like one filled out at the equipment. Objective measurements are what changes the record. When readings come from Bluetooth probes and land in the job file on their own, “within spec” becomes a documented result that someone can check later.
That’s the idea behind ACCA’s Quality Installation certificate program, powered by measureQuick: the system gets verified against measured performance, and the contractor walks away with a record of the work
As measureQuick founder Jim Bergmann puts it, “If you skip commissioning you will surely be back for a performance issue or a warranty callback. There is no free lunch.”
Register for Codes and Coffee on Wednesday, November 18, at 12 ET for the Full Report
ACCA’s upcoming Codes and Coffee webinar digs into the data mountain behind the 2025 Field Commissioning Report. The panel discussion features:
- Jim Bergmann, President, Manifold Cloud Services & measureQuick®
- Brian Feenie, Shift Logic & ACCA QI Certificates Chief Encouragement Officer
- Abigail Daken, Senior Program Manager, Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE)
- Ed Janowiak, ACCA Manager of HVAC Design Education
They’ll be answering the following questions:
- How far from their rating are installed systems running?
- Which setup misses show up most often in the field data?
- What do the crews with the best numbers do differently?
Register here (you must be an ACCA member).
The 2025 Field Commissioning Report releases with the episode. Register and be first in line to get your copy!
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