Hello eQuesters I was wondering if any of you had used eQuest for Energy Code compliance outside of California? e.g. 90.1-2010 chapter 11 or IECC-2009 section 506? (the whole building performance methods).If yes, specifics? If not, what software do you use for this instead? By 'whole building performance' I mean a shortcoming in one category (e.g. too much glass, too many lights) can be compensated for from another category (e.g. efficient HVAC). What I have learned so far:COMcheck works fine for prescriptive compliance which is the way most commercial plans are sent through. COMcheck is not set up for whole building performance ( I have tested this). eQuest works well for LEED EA credits which uses 90.1 Appendix G..... Appendix G starts out by saying it is not intended as an alternative for chapter 11.... thanks folksSteve
Steve:
I have used eQUEST and another DOE-2 interface (VisualDOE) for a dozen or so energy code compliance models.
I don't use the compliance shell, but rather create my two buildings (design and baseline) according to the rules in section 11 of ASHRAE 90.1-2007.
I recently looked at IECC 2009 section 506 and saw a provision requiring that the baseline model be automatically generated by the software. I believe it specifically prohibits any user intervention in creating the baseline. Seeing this, I believe that eQUEST and VisualDOE have not implemented compliance shells that achieve that level of perfection - so I chose to use IECC section 501.1 / 501.2 to use ASHRAE 90.1's ECB (section 11) instead.
Aaron
Aaron Dahlstrom , PE, LEED(r) AP