CMA Subcommittee debates on Trump Tower at NFRC Summer Meeting

The technical subcommittees meeting continued on the third day of the National Fenestration Rating Council's Summer Meeting July 30 in Chicago,starting with the Attachment Subcommittee. Five task groups presented their reports: Storm Window, Dynamic Attachments for Swinging Doors, Exterior Attachments, Interior Attachments, and Storm Door and Storm Panels.Other than the task group chairs, John Gant, shade market development manager, Glen Raven Inc., Glen Raven, N.C., gave a brief presentation on European Standards.The Component Model Approach Technical Subcommittee was up next, chaired by Mike Manteghi, director of research and innovation, Traco, Cranberry Township, Pa. Michael Thoman, director thermal testing & simulations, Architectural Testing, York, Pa., presented a report on the CMA Validation Testing Task Group and Charlie Curcija, president, Carli Inc., Amherst, Mass., presented a report on the CMA Non-Standard Products Task Group.While discussing “non-standard products,” or products that were not included in the original CMA, Curcija said that the task group has no additional task pending because research concluded that the products can be included.Thoman disagreed. “The task group needs to work on spelling out how this was done in a program document or in the software tool,” he said. “It might be minor or major. We’re hiding a lot of things on how this is done in the software; we need to spell it out. For CMA, in general, we have been pretty vague. So, we have cleanup work to do on this.”

Manteghi said he agreed.Greg Carney, technical director, Glass Association of North America, Topeka, Kan., spoke up: “When it comes to commercial storefront and low-rise fenestration, it’s commonly standard off-the-shelf products. When it comes to commercial mid- and high-rise construction, custom wall systems dominate. There are so many custom products out there, I would question how the standard can handle them all."Curcija said everything that’s covered under NFRC’s existing program are covered in the program. Carney said, “Existing programs are for residential windows. We’re talking about a whole different market segment. We shouldn’t be this flippant about it. We need to be looking at the details. I’d like to challenge NFRC to look at the Trump Tower under construction here and think if it can go through the process and how much it’d cost.”“Our conclusion was, based on what we could see, we would have no more than two simulations on that building,” said Marles McDonald, Quality Testing Inc., Everett, Wash. “The cost of simulation and testing would be something like a thousand of a percent of the overall cost of the construction of the building.”Carney urged the membership to take it up as a challenge and simulate all of the fenestration systems on the tower.The members also reviewed the following ballots: Generic CMA Frame Values–NFRC 100; CMA Frame Grouping Rules–NFRC 100; Generic CMA Frame Values–NFRC 200; and CMA Spacer Grouping Rules–NFRC 100.

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