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Detailed Stringency Analysis of Suggested Amendements to Chapter ll of the 2012 IRC and the 2012 IECC that were Submitted to SECO During March 30-April 30, 2012 Comment Period
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Date
2012-08
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Energy Systems Laboratory
Abstract
In 2007, the 80th legislature mandated the Energy Systems Laboratory (Laboratory) to take part in Texas
rule-making process. As detailed in the Health and Safety Code, Chapter 388, Texas Building Energy
Performance Standards, Sec. 388.003 (b-1), the Laboratory is required to submit written
recommendations to the State Energy Conservation Office (SECO) on whether the energy efficiency
provisions of the latest published editions of the International Residential Code (IRC) or the International
Energy Conservation Code (IECC) for residential or commercial energy efficiency and air quality are
equivalent to or more stringent than the provisions of editions previously adopted as the Texas Building
Energy Performance Standards (TBEPS). As according to the Health and Safety Code, Section 388.003
(b-3), the Laboratory is also mandated to consider all the comments collected by SECO from persons who
have an interest in the adoption of energy codes on the new code editions. This report includes a detailed analysis of the suggested amendments to Chapter 11 of the 2012 IRC and Chapter 4 of the 2012 IECC that were submitted to SECO during the March 30-April 30, 2012 comment period. The suggested amendments were compared to the TBEPS compliant base-case building. The suggested amendments were also compared to the 2012 code compliant base-case building. The
analysis was conducted using Version 4.01.08 of the BDL input file prepared for the IC3. The
performance path as described in 20093 and 2012 IECC was used for the analysis. Eight such suggested
amendments were received and are described in the next section.