The Standard Work Specifications (SWS) are maintained through the submission of comments by industry experts throughout the year. To learn how to submit a comment, please visit the Help section.
Standard Work Specifications Maintenance Committees
The entity that evaluates and approves updates to the SWS is composed of an executive committee and four subcommittees. The subcommittees include subject matter experts for individual sections of the SWS.
The subcommittees are the working groups that adjudicate comments received in the comment review period prior to an SWS maintenance event. Subcommittee members discuss and determine a response to each comment received. The subcommittees are responsible for revising the technical content of each section of the SWS and relevant addenda. To learn about the specific procedures of the maintenance committees, please refer to the Guidelines for Home Energy Professionals: Standard Work Specifications (SWS) Maintenance Procedures.
Interim Updates to the Standard Work Specifications
While most comments to the SWS will be addressed at regular SWS Maintenance Committee meetings, comments meeting specific criteria may be addressed on an interim basis. To qualify for an interim update, the comment must meet one of the following criteria:
- Comment represents a major life-safety or health issue; or
- Comment is submitted on behalf of a major industry organization.
To ensure industry collaboration and consensus, interim comments meeting the above criteria will be addressed by a U.S. Department of Energy Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) representative, a National Renewable Energy Laboratory technical expert, and at least one subject matter expert from the previous SWS Maintenance Committee.
A total of 94 comments received prior to October 31, 2015 were reviewed and adjudicated by the following committees: Health & Safety Committee, HVAC & Baseload, and Air Sealing & Infiltration. The resulting updates are displayed in the 2016 SWS Redline documents below, which also contain all updates made during the 2015 Combustion Safety Maintenance Update. The 2016 SWS Comment Spreadsheet details the specific comments and adjudication responses.
The changes represented in the redline versions and comment spreadsheet are intended to be integrated into the SWS Online Tool by October 2017. Redline documents can be used as a reference by users who are looking for the most up-to-date industry standards.
Please note: At this time, WAP grantees are NOT required to revise their field guides in accordance with the redline documents.
The 2016 SWS Redline documents and comment spreadsheet can be found below.
- 2016 SWS Redline (with tracked changes)
- 2016 SWS Redline (with changes accepted)
- 2016 SWS Comment Spreadsheet
2015 Combustion Safety Maintenance Update
Comments received on Section 2.02: Combustion Safety of the SWS prior to July 1, 2015 were reviewed by the Health & Safety Committee on August 8, 2015 to reach consensus and align the SWS with industry standards, such as the ANSI/BPI-1200-S-2015 Standard Practice for Basic Analysis of Buildings, recently released by the Building Performance Institute, Inc. (BPI). The committee reviewed 44 comments and performed a crosswalk of the entire 2.02: Combustion Safety section to make updates and align the standards. Updates were also made to Details 5.3003.14 & 15: Heating & Cooling – Forced Air, to align these Details with BPI-1200. The comments were adjudicated and the committee provided feedback for their actions. A redline version of this section was created for future integration into the SWS Online Tool.
Redline documents can be used as reference by users who are looking for the most up-to-date industry standards. Please note: At this time, WAP grantees are not required to revise their field guides in accordance with the redline documents.
The 2015 Combustion Safety comment spreadsheet can be found below. In order to facilitate a better user experience, the 2015 SWS Combustion Safety Redline documents were combined with the 2016 SWS Redline documents above.
2014 Maintenance Update
The first-ever SWS Maintenance Committee meetings were held on Monday, April 28, 2014 in Detroit, MI, which preceded the 2014 ACI National Home Performance Conference. 22 subject matter experts, split amongst 4 technical sub-committees, reviewed 185 comments that were submitted prior to the event. On Friday, May 2, 2014, an Executive Committee meeting was held with all committee chairs to resolve any crosscutting issues and all comments flagged for further discussion.
The resulting documents from this event can be found below.
For a more in-depth look at the 2014 SWS maintenance process, please refer to the Guidelines for Home Energy Professionals: Standard Work Specifications (SWS) Maintenance Charter.