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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 167 / Wednesday, September 1, 2021 / Proposed Rules This section discusses the wash/rinse temperature selections and TUFs applicable to semi-automatic clothes washers. As noted, semi-automatic clothes washers are defined at 10 CFR
430.2 as a class of clothes washer that is the same as an automatic clothes washer except that user intervention is required to regulate the water temperature by adjusting the external water faucet valves. DOEs test procedure requirements at 10 CFR
430.23j2ii state that the use of Appendix J2 is required to determine IMEF for both automatic and semiautomatic clothes washers.
Semi-automatic clothes washers inherently do not provide wash/rinse temperature selections on the control panel, as any combination of cold, warm, and hot wash temperatures and rinse temperatures are provided by the users adjustment of the external water faucet valves. The following discussion provides relevant historical context on this issue.
Section 6.1 of Appendix J1977 and Appendix J1997 provided separate TUFs explicitly for semi-automatic clothes washers for the following wash/
rinse temperature combinations: Hot/
Hot, Hot/Warm, Hot/Cold, Warm/Warm, Warm/Cold, and Cold/Cold. The specification of these TUFs indicated that these six wash/rinse temperature combinations were required for testing.
Section 3.2.2.6 of Appendix J1977 and Appendix J1997 and section 3.2.3.1.6
of Appendix J11997 and Appendix J1
2001 provided a table indicating the following external water faucet valve positions required to achieve each wash and rinse temperature selection:
Hot: Hot valve completely open, cold valve closed;
Warm: Hot valve completely open, cold valve completely open; and Cold: Hot valve closed, cold valve completely open.
Inherently, testing the Hot/Hot, Warm/Warm, and Cold/Cold temperature combinations require no changes to the water faucet valve positions between the wash and rinse portions of the cycle. However, testing the Hot/Warm, Hot/Cold, and Warm/
Cold temperature combinations requires the test administrator to manually regulate the water temperature between the wash and rinse portions of the cycle by adjusting the external water faucet valves. As reflected in DOEs definition of semi-automatic clothes washer, user intervention is required to regulate the water temperature of all semi-automatic clothes washers i.e., user regulation of water temperature is the distinguishing characteristic of a semi-automatic clothes washer. See 10 CFR 430.2.

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When it established Appendix J1
1997, DOE combined all of the TUF
tablesfor both automatic and semiautomatic clothes washersthat were provided in section 5 and section 6 of Appendix J1997 into a single condensed table in Table 4.1.1 of Appendix J11997. 62 FR 45484, 45512.
In contrast to Appendix J1997, which provided separate TUF tables for every possible set of available wash/rinse temperature selections, the simplified table in Appendix J11997 was organized into columns based on the number of wash temperature selections available on a clothes washer. Warm rinse was considered separately within each column of the table. Id. In the current version of Appendix J2, Table 4.1.1 remains a single simplified table, although in the August 2015 Final Rule, DOE clarified the column headings by listing the wash/rinse temperature selections applicable to each column. 80
FR 46729, 46782.
The simplified Table 4.1.1 in Appendix J2 does not state which columns of the table are applicable to semi-automatic clothes washers. In the May 2012 Direct Final Rule, DOE stated that it was not aware of any semiautomatic clothes washers on the market. 77 FR 32307, 32317. However, DOE is currently aware of several semiautomatic clothes washer models available in the U.S. market.
In the May 2020 RFI, DOE requested input on whether to amend the test procedure with regard to the specificity of wash/rinse test combinations for semiautomatic clothes washers in Appendix J2, and whether those updates would provide test results that measure energy efficiency and water use during a representative average use cycle or period of use, and whether they would be unduly burdensome to conduct. 85 FR 31065, 31077.
No comments were received regarding these aspects of the test procedure for semi-automatic clothes washers. The following sections describe DOEs proposals for specifying how to test semi-automatic clothes washers.
a. Temperature Selections and Usage Factors DOE is proposing to specify how to test semi-automatic clothes washers in the proposed new Appendix J. In this section, DOE describes its proposals to specify which temperatures to test and which TUFs to apply to the measured results.
As described above, Appendix J1977
required testing six wash/rinse temperature combinations: Hot/Hot, Hot/Warm, Hot/Cold, Warm/Warm, Warm/Cold and Cold/Cold. The TUFs in
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Table 6.1 of Appendix J1977 used the same general usage factors for semiautomatic clothes washers as for automatic clothes washers. 42 FR 49802, 49810. For example, the Cold/Cold TUF
of 0.15 was the same for both types, and the sum of Hot/Hot, Hot/Warm and Hot/
Cold with a total TUF of 0.30 for semiautomatic clothes washers was the same as the TUF for Hot/Cold on an automatic clothes washer with only three temperature selections.
DOE updated the TUFs in the August 1997 Final Rule, based on P&G data provided by AHAM. 62 FR 45484, 45491. Currently, Table 4.1.1 of Appendix J2 does not include TUFs for all six of the temperatures required for testing in Appendix J1977.
DOE considered requiring that semiautomatic clothes washers be tested with the same six temperature settings as in Appendix J1977. Table III.2 lists potential TUF values that could be used if DOE were to require testing all six possible temperature combinations.
These values follow the same pattern that was used in Table 6.1 of Appendix J1977, such that the sum of all temperature selections with a Hot Wash add up to 0.14 and the sum of all temperature selections with a Warm Wash add up to 0.49,47 consistent with the current TUFs for Hot/Cold and Warm/Cold as defined in Table 4.1.1 of Appendix J2.

TABLE III.2POTENTIAL TEMPERATURE
USAGE FACTORS FOR SEMI-AUTOMATIC CLOTHES WASHERS REFLECTING SIX REQUIRED TEMPERATURE
COMBINATIONS
Wash/rinse temperature selection Hot/Hot
Hot/Warm
Hot/Cold
Warm/Warm
Warm/Cold
Cold/Cold

Potential TUF
values 0.07
0.05
0.02
0.38
0.11
0.37

By including all six possible temperature combinations, Table 6.1 of Appendix J1977 included wash/rinse temperature settings that require the water temperature to be changed between the wash portion and the rinse portion of the cycle i.e., Hot/Warm, Hot/Cold, and Warm/Cold, and wash/
rinse temperature settings that do not require any water temperature change 47 DOE notes that the apportionment between Warm/Warm and Warm/Cold was different for automatic clothes washers and semi-automatic clothes washers in Appendix J1977. DOE is proposing a TUF apportionment between Warm/
Warm and Warm/Cold that is proportional to the apportionment in Table 6.1 of Appendix J1977.

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