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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 167 / Wednesday, September 1, 2021 / Proposed Rules
procedure consistency, specifically whether a visual or audio indicator includes tub cabinet hits, a paused spin cycle, anomalous revolutions per minute rpm, an unbalanced indication on the control panel, or any other type of signal. NEEA stated that inconsistencies among test laboratory interpretations of this provision could lead to repeatability and reproducibility issues. NEEA, No. 12 at p. 17
UL commented that DOE should consider amending section 3.2.9 of Appendix J2 to specify whether the term audio indicator includes only electronic tones from the clothes washer e.g., beeps, or if it also includes mechanical noises from the machinery itself e.g., the cabinet hitting due to an unbalanced load. UL added that unbalanced visual indicators such as a machine control panel displaying ul for unbalanced load may last for only a few seconds and could be easily missed. UL, No. 9 at p. 2 UL also suggested that wash water use data be discarded if consumption and/or cycle time differ vastly from other cycles run on the machine, since cycle time may be altered if a clothes washer adds an extra rinse to redistribute an unbalanced load.
Id.
AHAM commented that sometimes a cycle may not terminate due to an outof-balance or other anomalous behavior, and that some models do not provide audio or visual indicators to notify the consumer that an anomalous condition was detected and fixed by the machine.
AHAM, No. 5 at pp. 78 According to AHAM, these actions benefit the consumerinstead of requiring consumer interaction during the cycle, the clothes washer addresses the anomalous behavior and finishes the cycle. AHAM added that this also often saves energy and water by finishing the cycle with some incrementally increased water or energy usage instead of requiring a cycle to be canceled and completely re-run. Id. AHAM stated that it is unlikely that these anomalous conditions happen frequently when consumers use the clothes washer and that test runs exhibiting these conditions should be considered invalid. Id. In response to DOEs question about how anomalous behavior can be detected without an indicator and during the test of only one unit, AHAM commented that a spot check verification test would be the only means for doing so. AHAM added that should anomalous behavior occur during a single test, more units will almost always be tested as part of DOEs enforcement procedures or ENERGY
STAR verification procedures, and that at that time, anomalous behavior would
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become evident and would be a signal to the laboratory that the outlier test run should be discarded. Id. According to AHAM, a trained technicianwhether at a manufacturer laboratory or a thirdparty laboratoryshould similarly be able to tell that there was a power interruption at some point in the duration of the cycle due to software detecting an issue, stopping the cycle, and taking action to fix it e.g., redistributing the load. Id.
AHAM recommended that DOE add language to the test procedure specifying that if there is a visual or audio indicator that would alert the user about anomalous behavior, or if there are other indicators that suggest anomalous behavior, the test be stopped and the results discarded. Id. According to AHAM, without this change, manufacturers may need to redesign products to terminate at any indication of anomalous behavior rather than automatically resolve the issue for the consumer. AHAM added that the ability of a clothes washer to correct itself without terminating the cycle is an important consumer utility. Id. To address possible circumvention concerns e.g., that a product would be designed to perform this way, AHAM
proposed that DOE consider a similar approach to IEC 60456 Section 8.2.5
and the accompanying note which references Section 9.1, which limits the number of additional test runs and requires reporting the reason for the rejection of a test run. Id.
Electrolux supported the suggestion that energy data obtained from a cycle that may be acting erratically or abnormally in any way should be discarded. Electrolux recommended that DOE consider a possible manufacturersupplied cycle status code that would be available to any test agency following completion of a cycle, which would monitor the cycle for anomalous behavior and provide an error code indicating not to use that cycle data.
Electrolux additionally supported AHAMs comments on this issue.
Electrolux, No. 11 at p. 3
DOE acknowledges that as clothes washer technology has improved, certain clothes washers are designed to self-correct out-of-balance loads or make other adjustments to the operation of the unit to complete the cycle without alerting the consumer or requiring user intervention. DOE also recognizes the benefit of objective and observable criteria to determine when an anomalous cycle has occurred, based on a single test, such that the data from that anomalous cycle should be discarded.
To provide more objective and observable criteria, DOE proposes that
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data from a wash cycle would be discarded if either: The washing machine signals to the user by means of an audio or visual alert that an offbalance condition has occurred; or the wash cycle terminates prematurely and thus does not include the agitation/
tumble operation, spin speeds, wash times, and rinse times applicable to the wash cycle under test. The proposed reference to an audio or visual alert refers to a warning sound initiated by the clothes washer, or visual cue such as a flashing light or persistent error code, that is provided to the user to actively inform the user that a problem has occurred; as opposed to a more passive indication such as the cabinet hitting the side or a change in the projected cycle duration, which could go unnoticed by the user or which itself may not be an indication of an out-ofbalance load that warrants discarding the data for a test cycle. To emphasize this intent, DOE is proposing to change the current phrase provides a visual or audio indicator to alert the user to signals to the user by means of a visual or audio alert in both section 3.2.9 of Appendix J2 and section 3.2.6 of the proposed new Appendix J.
DOE is also proposing to change the current phrase terminates prematurely if an out-of-balance condition is detected to simply terminates prematurely, in recognition that other factors beyond an out-of-balance condition could also cause a wash cycle to terminate prematurely e.g., a clogged filter, mechanical malfunction, etc., and that for any such reason, the data from that wash cycle would be discarded.
DOE is further proposing nonsubstantive wording changes to section 3.2.9 of Appendix J2 and section 3.2.6
of the proposed new Appendix J to make explicit that if data are discarded for the reasons described in these sections, the wash cycle is repeated.
DOE requests comment on the proposed criteria for determining whether test data are to be discarded.
Specifically, DOE requests comment on the proposal that test data are discarded if a washing machine either signals to the user by means of a visual or audio alert that an out-of-balance condition has occurred or terminates prematurely.
DOE requests comment on whether additional or alternate criteria would provide objective and observable indication during a single test that test data are to be discarded.
8. Semi-Automatic Clothes Washers Section III.C.2 of this document discussed the installation of semiautomatic clothes washers for testing.

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