EEMAC Creates North American Electric Heating Coalition

Electro-Federation Canada's EEMAC (Electrical Equipment Manufacturers Association of Canada) Council and its Electric Heating Section have created a North American Electric Heating Coalition with 15+ Canadian and U.S.  companies, both large and small. 

This group is banding together in an effort to block and stop:

The International Energy Conservation Code Committee (IECC), which recommends building code changes that would ban the use of electric heating.

Here are the understood facts: 

By a very narrow margin (6 to 5) at its last meeting, the IECC voted to change the code on electric resistance heaters. The proposed new text is as follows: 

403.7 Space Heating Equipment (Mandatory) - Electric resistance heating shall not be used for space heating.  This includes, but is not limited to, electric space heaters, electric furnaces, electric baseboard heaters, electric wall heaters and electric thermal storage.

There are some small exceptions to this, but this proposal effectively eliminates the future market for equipment that is produced by our industry. Paragraph 403 of the IECC applies to residential construction and concerns itself with electrical and mechanical systems.

It is the belief of the new Electric Heating coalition that such a recommendation is ill advised, biased and misrepresents the facts. We need our members, constituents and all those potentially affected by such a bias and unfounded position to take note and respond in force to the ICC (IECC’s governing body).

A consultant has been hired to represent this Coalition and will work with this active team who meet once a week via teleconference, to discuss this very time-sensitive issue.

If you have any questions or would like to get involved, please contact Wayne Edwards, Vice President, EEMAC Council at wedwards@electrofed.com, or Deborah Preston at dpreston@electrofed.com.