Hey Everyone,

I've been keeping track of a list of potential improvements to eQUEST,
and I wanted to send out a final request. Please review the list below
and email me (not the entire list) if you have anything that isn't
already included. My hope is to take this to the eQUEST developers and
try to figure out a way to either get funding for these improvements,
or be able to work with them to help develop some of these features. I
realize a list like this has been attempted many times, but I never
see a final result, so I'm giving it a shot myself! Thanks in advance
for your input.

Geometry/Zoning
1) Allow users to name their own zones in the wizards and make wall,
constructions, & layers match up with user chosen names.
2) A detailed interface zone/space editor that makes it easier to
create, modify, or delete zones or spaces (not only helps w/updating
the geometry, but for displacement ventilation too).
3) Change the Zone Snap by CAD, Polygon, or Grid in the wizard to
radio buttons instead of pulldown menus.
4) Always import the CAD file to put it near 0,0,0 or make it easier
to zoom in and out.
5) Fix issues with creating side by side shells in the wizard ? right
now, even if you try to line up the shells exactly in line with each
other, eQUEST sometimes creates an exterior wall between the shells.
This can be solved by drawing your zone boundaries slightly inside the
shell boundaries, but it would be nice to be able to indicate interior
vs exterior surfaces in the wizard.
6) Provide the option to create one roof per zone vs. one roof per
shell, regardless of whether or not you have a plenum.
7) When you build shells stacked on top of each other in the wizard,
if the shells do not have the same footprint, you end up with portions
of one shell missing exterior roofs or exterior ground floors. It
would be nice if the programs defined the exterior surfaces based on
which portions of the zone are actually exposed to exterior
conditions.
8) Better way to define double high or atrium spaces.

Envelope/Heat Transfer
1) Better accuracy/options for modeling light shelves
2) Double walled fa?ade, with options for venting
3) Trombe walls
4) Better thermal mass simulation
5) Modeling windows with input files from Window 5 (W5): This is
probably more of an issue with W5, but the file that is exported, does
not include the framing, so if you want to model the windows this way,
you need to build the actual dimensions of each window in eQUEST and
assign framing to it.
6) Night sky radiation
7) Ability to calculate radiant transfer, mean radiant temperature and
thermal comfort metrics.
8) Fix issues or provide more documentation on how to accurately
simulate roof/attic heat transfer when you have plenums. Right now, if
your plenum zones and spaces are set to type ?Plenum?, the load
reports show no heat transfer through the roof. Changing the space
type to ?Conditioned? or ?Unconditioned? seems to fix this, but it
would be nice to have documentation explaining why.

Internal Loads
1) Ability to select ballast types for lighting fixtures and have the
program include default wattages for the ballasts.

Airside Systems
1) A built in UFAD model
2) Ability to do demand control ventilation check box in wizard and
for it to apply to more system types
3) Fix issues with air to water Heat Pump models ? right now, it runs
as if the COP were 1 regardless of what EIR is input. The workaround
is to model electric resistance with the correct COP and part load
curves, but this should be fixed.
4)?Ability to directly model water-water heat pumps.
5)?Built in system type for active and passive chilled beams.
6)?Built in system type for radiant floors (heating and cooling).
7)?Ability to assign more than one system to a zone (especially useful
for modeling a dedicated outside air system).
8)?Better accuracy for modeling natural ventilation and make it
available for all system types.
9)?When modeling a dedicated outside air system (DOAS), you cannot
also have demand control control ventilation and/or and OA economizer.
Basically, the DOAS can only provide a constant amount of OA, dictated
by the zone level requirements.
10) The option to specify packaged DX EER at either design or rated conditions.
11)?The option to specify a packaged DX EER with or without fan energy
included ? then the program would subtract out fan power if that was
also entered.
12)?More transparent way of specifying VAV turndown ratios. Right now,
if you specify it in terms of Min cfm/sf, and leave Min Ratio blank,
Min Ratio automatically defaults to 1 and eQUEST takes the greater of
the two, rendering your input for Min cfm/sf a moot point.

Central Plants
1)?Water Side Economizer (plant side) - right now, this only functions
if it can provide 100% free cooling, it cannot pre-cooled water going
to the chiller. There are many semi-accurate work arounds to this, but
it would be great if the WSE could do partial cooling as well.
2)?Water to Water heat pump - right now you can only assign this to a
lake/well loop, which is a big problem.
3)?Ability to model solar hot water systems
4)?Ability to have one chiller loop provided entering chilled water
for another loop.

Parametric Runs
1) The ability to copy/paste parametric components and runs.? Right
now can be done in the .prd, but it would be nice to do it within the
eQUEST interface.
2)?Several things are missing from the parametric run pulldowns (e.g.
Tubular skylights, Lighting Control Method).
3)?The ability to create, leave out, or reassign keywords/components
in parametric runs.? This would fix at least 2 things:
- The glaring difficulty of creating 90.1 App G baselines when the
proposed design has a chiller, but the baseline has packaged cooling.
For me, this is the #1 shortcoming in eQUEST.? Encountered all the
time, tedious and error-prone every time.
- Zones could be reassigned between runs. Right now, we solve this by
abandoning eQUEST before doing parametrics and using if-then
statements in the INP and then using "case" type statements to change
them in the BDL.

User Interface
1) Fixing the spreadsheets so that they cut/paste can be used with
Excel and Word, and so that multiple selections can be more easily
edited at once.? Also the spreadsheet feature seems to lock cells when
sorted sometimes.
2) A graphical and spreadsheet format for schedules in the detailed
interface.? Would streamline a tedious process and provide output for
reports.
3) The ability to copy/paste components within the tree structure
(right now have to use a pulldown menu to find the space).
4)?Azimuth field in the Window spreadsheet so that it can be sorted by
orientation.
5)?Easier way to delete components from the component tree ? right
now, when you navigate down to what you want to delete, after its
deleted the tree reverts back to its original state, and you have to
manually navigate down to each component you want to delete.
6)?In the spreadsheet view, it would be nice to be able to copy and
paste defaults and ?restore defaults? ?for multiple selections, the
same way you can for user defined inputs.

Reports/Help Menus
1)?Updating the help menus to refer directly to eQUEST user inputs, as
well as BDL keywords.? Right now the DOE2 help will only tell you the
keyword/command, but not where to find them in eQUEST's detailed
interface.
2)?Simplify the hourly result reporting process.
3)?Create a report that includes all cooling and heating loads
(including correct roof conduction and outside air)
4)?A graphical report that shows not only end use by energy use but
also end use by energy cost
5)?Better documentation for the energy rate input.
6)?A feature to show the origin of a DOE-2 default (Title 24?? DOE2?
90.1? 62.1? Standard practice?)
7)?Better documentation on domestic hot water defaults
8)?More help documentation on dealing with eQUEST inputs at elevation
?which ones are automatically corrected by the elevation you input
under ?Site Parameters? and which ones should you account for
elevation within the inputs? The help menus only address airflow
corrections, but do not indicate is equipment efficiencies are derated
as well.
9)?More help documentation on performance curves and how to generate
the correct eQUEST inputs from part load data ? the process is
difference for chillers versus packaged DX and the help files don?t
adequately address this.

Kendra Tupper