4 min read

What is AHRI Certification? 

AHRI (Air Conditioning Heating & Refrigeration Institute) was founded in North America, with a rich origin story beginning in 1888. The AHRI is recognised as a global authority in the HVACR industry thanks to its extensive history of amalgamating cross-disciplinary wisdom and expertise. Today, the AHRI is a trade association that provides accurate, unbiased, third-party evaluation of component performance, awarding certification strictly to manufacturers that meet their claimed specifications. 

AHRI certification should be displayed on a component’s datasheet. AHRI’s certification standards always meet or exceed relevant government regulations for quality, environmental sustainability and performance, making their stamp of approval the gold standard for HVACR equipment internationally. 

Whilst AHRI provides certification for a variety of pumps, water heaters, air handling units and more, there is often confusion surrounding their Heat Exchanger certification, its requirements, and its significance. 

Benefits of Using AHRI-Certified Heat Exchangers 

AHRI promotes consistency and objectivity in its testing, ensuring that you are receiving precisely what you commissioned. This provides customers the opportunity to evaluate product quality with objectivity, and consistency. 

When evaluated against the competition, AHRI Certified Heat Exchangers, while they may carry a higher acquisition cost, are by far the superior option when compared to heat exchangers that are not AHRI tested. 

If your product is not AHRI certified, its performance per the specifications you and your supplier agreed upon is not guaranteed. Hesitance on the part of a supplier to provide AHRI-certified components should always be viewed as a red flag, and cutting costs by forgoing the use of such equipment is inadvisable due to the lack of guaranteed performance. 

By insisting upon the use of AHRI-certified components as a minimum standard, you are ensuring that all machinery within your system is operating in exact accordance with its design limits, creating not only an increase in efficiency and reliability of a singular product but the synergy of a system wherein every single component is performing to tight tolerances designed to complement one another for ideal performance. For this reason, it is recommended to use AHRI-certified components across the board when commissioning your system. 

This optimisation of efficiency pays dividends beyond the increase in acquisition costs, as energy bills are minimised, system longevity is increased, and lifetime maintenance costs are far lower than what is expected of a system wherein each component is deviating from its requested specifications. 

Even if a manufacturer who is not AHRI certified produces machinery that is 1% less efficient than what they claim, the additional energy costs of using such a unit over the product lifecycle can easily exceed the discount margin of working with a less reputable supplier. 

All AHRI Were Not Created Equal 

AHRI maintains a continuously evolving portfolio of over 100 performance rating standards and guidelines for the HVACR and water heating industry. 

While most mechanical engineers realise their pumps and cooling towers need to be certified, they are not always familiar with the importance of having certified heat exchangers.  

The relevant AHRI certification for Heat Exchangers is the Liquid to Liquid Heat Exchangers Certification Program. If a Heat Exchanger is fully AHRI certified under this program, it should display the following on its datasheet: 

• The AHRI Logo 
• Plate Model 
• Thermal Duty specifications 
• Heat Transfer Coefficient 
• Quantity of Plates 
• Fouling Margin 

If these factors are present and per AHRI’s requirements, the datasheet can be sent to AHRI for verification and returned with an AHRI stamp, performed as a free service. This gives the end user peace of mind as they can rest assured 

It also enables the end user to display the verified data sheet to inspectors, creating a smooth approval process.

Common Misconceptions

It is unfortunately not uncommon for suppliers to loosely throw the term ‘AHRI certified’ at their clients, taking advantage of their lack of understanding when it comes to what precisely AHRI certification represents. 

A supplier may claim that a product they offer is ‘AHRI certified,’ based on the fact that their manufacturer has, at some point, built one product that has received AHRI certification. This does not mean that their work is always, or even consistently, capable of passing an AHRI certification. 

AHRI certification is not merely a singular, universal standard. Rather, it is a guarantee from a third-party tester that a component performs according to the specifications that YOU paid for. 

So, if your manufacturer has claimed AHRI certification, be sure to check your spec and ask AHRI to verify your data sheet if this is yet to be done. 

Frauds vs the Real Deal 

Suppose a manufacturer even slightly inflates their power/efficiency claims. In that case, which some have been found to do by using variances in testing equipment to their favour, the compromise in energy costs will hurt the end user. 

Every 1°C lower evaporation temperature increases operating expenses by 3.5%, whilst every 1°C higher condensation temperature increases operating expenses by 1.5%. Non-AHRI typically has a 2°C approach rather than the AHRI 1°C approach when it comes to standards for tolerance. 

Say a customer specifies a 2 megawatt unit, a manufacturer’s own-guarantee datasheet may not reveal the same information as an AHRI third-party datasheet… but as manufacturers are aware that temp gauges have +/- 12kpa variance and +/1 0.5°C variances and incorporate this into their data reading software, they can present misleading information. They can also artificially inflate internal data sheet performance with a larger channel gap than what can be used on your actual *HVAC* project, which requires a smaller panel gap to increase water turbulence. 

Being proud of their integrity, Alfa Laval PROMOTES AHRI testing based on their confidence in their work. 

A History of Quality  

Masterflow entrusts Alfa Laval as its primary supplier of heat exchangers. Alfa Laval has been manufacturing heat exchangers for over 90 years and offers the widest range of plate heat exchangers available to the market. 

Part of what makes Masterflow Better By Degrees is our core value of attention to detail. We carefully examine the needs of YOUR project, ensuring that the best fit on the market is supplied. Alfa Laval’s quality, experience, innovation and variety ensure that an effective choice is always available 
For enquiries on heat exchangers, AHRI certification and all things HVAC, reach out to Masterflow and our expertise will be in service of your project’s success.