Energy Modeling Blog

How to get TRACE 700 for FREE

Robert Fassbender's picture
Author: Bob
Posted on: Aug 11, 2011
Reads: 28,562
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Recently transfer jobs and find your new company won’t fork over the dough to buy you TRACE 700? Or are you a small firm and want to save money? Perhaps you just want to learn Trane TRACE and expand your resume?

Want TRACE 700 for free? You have three options. Option 1 - TRACE Rewards Points

Do you spec equipment? Or do you purchase equipment? Do you talk to your local Trane rep? Well, you might not know it, but you might be able to get TRACE 700 for free (this will be the full support package too). It’s possible to get a discount too.

See, many Trane offices have “rewards points” systems. When you purchase equipment you get points which are often redeemable for office training events, and even trips to...
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Filed under: TRACE 700

Doing a LEED Energy Model In House?

Robert Fassbender's picture
Author: Bob
Posted on: Aug 7, 2011
Reads: 12,679
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If you're a LEED AP you passed a pretty difficult test, so how difficult could a LEED energy model be? Well, doing an energy-model is one thing, but doing a LEED energy-model is another. With countless nuances in LEED modeling, it takes a decent bit of experience to get good at modeling for LEED. To be honest, I have seen some horrible models. In fact, in my years working in TRACE 700 support, I've told many LEED APs that he or she would save money by sub-consulting the project to a firm with more experience.

How can you avoid this? Well, we recommend making friends and getting training! We offer a low cost "LEED for Energy-Modelers"...
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Filed under: LEED

LEED and Energy-Modeling

Robert Fassbender's picture
Author: Bob
Posted on: Jul 24, 2011
Reads: 48,610
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Are you a LEED AP? Do you know the ins and outs of energy-modeling?

If you can answer yes to both of these questions your portfolio will be on hyper-drive. Here, we are going to outline the TRUE importance of an Energy-model in LEED certification. In fact, we'll quantify it and also answer some beginner questions if you are new to the subject. We are also going to help you decide whether to do a model in house or hire a consultant (and also help you to avoid getting ripped off if you do hire a consultant).

What is LEED energy-modeling?

When someone refers to LEED energy-modeling, they are almost always referring to LEED Energy and Atmosphere credit 1, and likely Energy and Atmosphere pre-requisite 2....
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Filed under: featuredLEED

Top 12 Reasons TRACE Users Should Learn eQUEST

Joe's picture
Author: Joe
Posted on: Jul 14, 2011
Reads: 16,302
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As an avid TRACE user, I always wanted to learn eQUEST, but trainings were hard to find (and support was near impossible to get!). With a growing online community, the need for centralized support has dwindled and eQUEST has become even more popular. 

Learning eQUEST has paid off faster than I ever imagined. I had no idea how big the community was until I started working with it. 

Apart from the fact that learning eQUEST will help you better understand TRACE 700 (like learning Spanish helps with understanding the nuances English, verb conjugation anyone?) - here are 12 great reasons to learn eQUEST, and if you think they are great too, head over to our...
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Filed under: eQUEST

Energy Modeler's Unit Converter In Depth

Joe's picture
Author: Joe
Posted on: Jul 13, 2011
Reads: 13,196
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  This is the first converter that is tailored to energy-modelers, or at least we think so... It includes prioritized units and conversions used most commonly in an energy modeler’s world. It also includes “non-linear” unit conversions such as EER, COP, EIR, as well as temperature, heat transfer units, lighting, glass parameters other units commonly found in eQUEST and other modeling programs.

Almost every modeler has some sort of spreadsheet, table, or handout with a long list of conversions and conversion units. Here, we have taken our most used conversions and added them to a converter so...
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Energy Modeling Toolbox: Fan Calculator In Depth

Joe's picture
Author: Joe
Posted on: Jul 13, 2011
Reads: 16,870
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Energy Modeling requires very specific calculations and conversions.  We thought that developing a nice set of online tools would be beneficial to the community.  So today we want to introduce the Energy Modeling Fan Calculator.   This is the first in a series of tools we'll be releasing.  Head over to the calculator if you want to try it out.  Continue reading this blog for a more in depth discussion about the Fan Calculators relationship with the major energy modeling programs.

 

Does it agree...
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LEED jokes

Joe's picture
Author: Joe
Posted on: Jun 3, 2011
Reads: 22,065
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In light of the popularity of our architect joke's blog, we received some user submitted LEED jokes:

 

Ironic LEED credits

 

LEED certified Lenscrafters

Credit Earned: SS c1 Site Selection (1 point)

 

LEED certified Northern Ireland Civil Rights Administration Building

Credit Earned: EA c6 Green Power (2 points)

 

...
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Top 10 Under-Used Features of TRACE 700

Robert Fassbender's picture
Author: Bob
Posted on: May 25, 2011
Reads: 17,605
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TRACE 700 has an armada of features. Some of them are way under-utilized. Let's take a moment to look at a few of them and see how they can be used:

Metric/English Units: By going to the options menu and selecting units, one can convert from English to metric units with a click of a button. Maybe this sounds obvious, however, many people forget about this when working in English units and viewing the ECB/PRM report. Changing units, then viewing the report will give you the values in kW-hr, and KW.Summary information: Under assign rooms to systems, a summary information checkbox is listed. When checked, this box will give information about any room, rooms, systems or entire project such as square...
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Filed under: technicalTRACE 700

Free BEMP sample Exam

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Author: Joe
Posted on: May 24, 2011
Reads: 18,551
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As a response to a popular user-request, we have started an example BEMP practice exam - which runs on a timer similar to our other exams.

If you would like to help out - or make suggestions, please do so in our user forum. If you would like to contribute, please submit sample questions on the forum as well. We will expand the exam based on forum discussion.

Please remember that this is just to get the feel for the exam and general energy modeling content. While we are ASHRAE members, we do not have any involvement in the BEMP process, and...
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Filed under: ASHRAEBEMPenergy modeling

Thermostat Schedules and Thermostat Driftpoints in TRACE 700

Joe's picture
Author: Joe
Posted on: Mar 30, 2011
Reads: 25,429
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The thermostat driftpoints are the temperatures that a room is allowed to drift up to or down to during periods of low or no occupancy. If the room temperature starts to go outside the driftpoint temperatures, the cooling or heating equipment will be activated, assuming the equipment is available to operate. TRACE will allow the room to drift up to or down to the driftpoint temperatures during the hours in which the people schedule for the room reads 5% or less; if the people schedule reads greater than 5%, the cooling thermostat will try to control the room to the design setpoints.

The thermostat schedules allow the user to enter heating and cooling setpoints based on time instead of occupancy. Thermostat schedules are created...
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Filed under: technicalTRACE 700
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