eQuest Warning

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Hello-

First time posting and glad I found this resource. This is a tricky
software to learn/utilize on projects.

I'm modeling a small office building that we'd like to certify LEED
Silver. Detailed output is giving me the following message for each
zone:

**WARNING***************************************************************
*******

Zone: EL2 South Perim Zn (G.S6) could not
successfully

allocate all equipment energy to the 5-minute bins

because of an equipment overload. The peak load

used in ECONOMICS will not include the fraction due

to the overload, but the PLANT reports will.

Mon/Day/Hour: 12 21 8 Energy: 1.9 Unallocated: 0.250

Does anyone have an idea what this might be or how to correct it? It
must have something to do with a control at the zone level. Any
assistance would be appreciated. Thanks.

Nathan R. Frymire, LEED(r) A.P.

Frymire, Nathan's picture
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Joined: 2011-09-30
Reputation: -1

Hi All,

I discovered some other strange things today with eQuest so I figured I'd
share them with you:

On the zone level, in the outdoor air tab, if "Track Exhaust" is specified,
but "Intermittent" is specified as fan control at the system level, then the
exhaust flow is reduced at any point when the supply is operating for a
portion of the hour. If the supply fans are not operating at all, then
exhaust flow is modeled appropriately. If supply is at 100%, then exhaust
flow is modeled appropriately. The same thing happens if the exhaust
control is "No Airflow Tracking." (and fans at the system level are modeled
as "Intermittent") It seems that the control sequence for this should be
the same as for when the system supply fan is on continuously but operates
as variable volume (this is what I've done to make-up for the situation).

I hope this is of use to some of you.

--
Karen

No Username provide's picture
Joined: 2011-09-30
Reputation: 200

Have you gotten any response to this? I came across the same warning
today (but at the system level) and do not know what to do...

Sometimes people respond direct to the person instead of reply-all. I'm
hoping that is the case and you found something out!

Alison Staudinger P.E., LEED AP

Alison Staudinger's picture
Joined: 2011-09-30
Reputation: 0

I had the same warning yesterday and although I cannot explain why the
warning went away, I can tell you what I did and if you're lucky maybe
it will apply for your case as well. I had 'Packaged Single Zone'
specified for my System Type and 'Plenum' for the Return Air Path of the
system parameters and obviously under my plenum zone I had the Zone Type
as 'Plenum'. For this isolated space it wasn't actually a plenum (the
remaining 98% of the building is a VAV RA plenum system) so I changed
the system to a 'Direct' Return Air Path and the Plenum Zone to an
'Unconditioned' Zone Type. After doing that my warning went away. I
don't know why but thought I would share it anyhow. Good luck!

Alison Staudinger P.E., LEED AP

Alison Staudinger's picture
Joined: 2011-09-30
Reputation: 0