The Southface team will research and validate the impact of novel HVAC installation verification and monitoring tools in climate zones 2 through 7. Through nationwide deployment in real-world applications utilizing HVAC contractor networks, the team will determine the individual and combined energy and HVAC performance impacts of commissioning using the measureQuick platform and continuous monitoring using the Sensi Predict system. Additionally, the team will document and analyze nonenergy impacts of these tools.

The research goal is to transform the $14 billion residential HVAC service industry using innovative technology to rectify the estimated 70% of systems that are currently operating with faults. Identifying and correcting these faults would produce energy savings of 10%–30% for both new and existing systems. Although prior attempts to improve installation quality at scale have failed to gain traction, the integration of these two emerging systems appears to offer several advantages to the contractor and the market for high-performing HVAC systems.