Underground soil temperature

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Dear all,

Is there any way to view the contents of the weather file?

I would like to check the underground soil temperature. This is because
more than half of my vertical walls are buried into the ground (I've
modelled them as below grade walls).

However, I'm getting a lot of heat transfer into the building from the
underground walls, meaning that the soil is at temperatures much higher
than 25 C. (Please check attached document!!)

As far as I know, the underground should be at a more or less constant
temperature of around 20C throughout the year...

Many thanks,

Omar Katanani

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Omar,

The LS-C report shows substantial sensible cooling load (~ 30%) from the Underground Surface Conduction which is alarming. Check the construction and ensure that you are modeling it correctly. If you are modeling it as U-value input, then it might be a good idea to change it to the Layer Input.

It might be possible that there is an error in the weather file. If you have the weather file (TMY2 or TMY3) in epw format then you can use Climate Consultant software (download for free from: http://www.energy-design-tools.aud.ucla.edu/) to view the ground temperatures.

OR

Create an hourly report in eQUEST.

See DOE-2 help:

Volume 4: Libraries & Reports > Reports > Hourly-Report and REPORT-BLOCK

And click on GLOBAL, the Variable List number 2 is listed as TGNDR (Ground Temperature [Rankine]).

I have no clue at what depths these temperatures are reported but please keep in mind that it is not necessary that the ground temperatures are always constant, they do experience some variability throughout the year.

Thanks.

Best regards,

Gaurav

Gaurav Mehta, LEED? AP BD+C

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