Ladies and Gentlemen of the eQuest user community,
I'm stuck. It's one of those days where I've been ginning through this model so long that my mind is blank. I'm hoping someone here has a quick answer.
ISSUE #1
Thinking back, the past 20 LEED models or so have been at sea level, lol. Now we're of in Texas somewhere, and we are not able to edit the red altitude field below, so we adjust for the 1.16 altitude factor eQuest placed on our airflows by lowering in our scheduled airflow. Now when comparing to a LEED baseline model, the factor reappears and we would like to eQuest to calculate those airflows, so the analysis is skewed. Our LEED model is reporting higher airflow due to the altitude correction factor. Now we are back to changing the altitude to 0-but how? It allows us to type something in but doesn't change the number? Editing the weather bin file isn't easy either as it's ASCII, and I'd have to research an editor and format.
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ISSUE #2
My LEED report shows annual energy use but all 0's in the energy breakdown and other normally populated items. This is a VRV job and only the DOAS is scheduled for airflow. Will 0's for fan operation make the whatever results the LEED comparison uses blank? The LEED report isn't mining results, but other detailed reporting is OK. I'd hate to hand populate the sheet.
The Excel sheet it spits out is attached.
Thanks for the assistance,
James B. Dyer, P.E., LEED AP O+M, CEM
I don't know about eQUEST, because my experience is only with the DOE-2 engine that lies
behind it, so you should take what I say with a grain of salt.
In DOE-2, the altitude of the building can be either read from the weather file, or input
separately by the user. The altitude that's shown on the screen below seems to be taken
from the weather file, which may be why you can't change it. Check to see if that's
true, and if so, check if there's a way for a user input of altitude that overrides what's
on the weather file. It is possible to change the elevation on the weather file, but
since it's a binary (not an ASCII) file, you have to use a couple of utility programs to
convert to text and then back to binary. However, I'm leery of large arbitrary changes in
altitude, like from 3,000 ft in El Paso down to sea level, as you suggest, because the
weather data would not be right at all. Why can't you just change the weather file to that
of an appropriate sea level location?
Joe
Joe Huang
White Box Technologies, Inc.
346 Rheem Blvd., Suite 108D
Moraga CA 94556
yjhuang at whiteboxtechnologies.com
http://weather.whiteboxtechnologies.com for simulation-ready weather data
(o) (925)388-0265
(c) (510)928-2683
"building energy simulations at your fingertips"
I have a guess: maybe the reason your altitude edits aren't sticking has something to do with the green input fields & purple text - that tells me you're using one of the energy compliance options (LEED/California/etc). Those options result in a myriad of user interface quirks.
Try saving a separate copy of your project, then setting the code compliance version to "- none - " (this is typical for every LEED project I've submitted)
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As to documentation, I've never included the eQuest generated LEED spreadsheet before, so it may help to know it's not a requirement/expectation if it isn't populating correctly. Simulation enduse output in my experience is typically documented through either the graphical reports and/or the PS-F reports (the latter only, of late). You're already "hand-entering" each of the enduses for each model/orientation anyway in the LEED templates - no good reason to do it more when a reviewer can check against the typical output reports for errors.
~Nick
[cid:489575314 at 22072009-0ABB]
NICK CATON, P.E.
SENIOR ENGINEER
Smith & Boucher Engineers
25501 west valley parkway, suite 200
olathe, ks 66061
direct 913.344.0036
fax 913.345.0617
www.smithboucher.com
You can remove code compliance,then you can change altitude.
I don't know about eQUEST, because my experience is only with the DOE-2 engine that lies behind it, so you should take what I say with a grain of salt.
In DOE-2, the altitude of the building can be either read from the weather file, or input separately by the user. The altitude that's shown on the screen below seems to be taken from the weather file, which may be why you can't change it. Check to see if that's true, and if so, check if there's a way for a user input of altitude that overrides what's on the weather file. It is possible to change the elevation on the weather file, but since it's a binary (not an ASCII) file, you have to use a couple of utility programs to convert to text and then back to binary. However, I'm leery of large arbitrary changes in altitude, like from 3,000 ft in El Paso down to sea level, as you suggest, because the weather data would not be right at all. Why can't you just change the weather file to that of an appropriate sea level location?
Joe
Joe Huang
White Box Technologies, Inc.
346 Rheem Blvd., Suite 108D
Moraga CA 94556
yjhuang at whiteboxtechnologies.comhttp://weather.whiteboxtechnologies.com for simulation-ready weather data
(o) (925)388-0265
(c) (510)928-2683
"building energy simulations at your fingertips"