The building shell contains the most screens of any particular function in the wizards and is the typical starting point. At first, the shell is considered as a single whole object. It requires a number of inputs:
Location on the site (Typically, this is only necessary when modeling multiple buildings and sometimes multiple shells)
Size
Shape
Zoning
Materials (only one construction type for walls).
Clicking “edit building shell” in the DD wizard, typically the default site coordinates are accepted and the building square footage and other properties are entered.
Click “next screen” and edit the building shape and zoning patterns. Please note, that eQUEST determines the building dimensions automatically, using the square footage, number of floors, footprint shape, and aspect ratio. Users may override dimensions where necessary. Remember to correctly enter the floor to floor and floor to ceiling heights.
After entering the footprint, zoning, and location, users must enter the individual components of the shell, starting with heat transfer surfaces
First users must define the opaque exterior surfaces. In screen 3, the most common constructions walls , roofs and ground floors, are entered. Please note that eQUEST allows only one construction type for each of these categories in the wizards. The total shell infiltration (or air that leaks into the building) allows two values, 1 for interior zones, and one for perimeter zones.
Following entry of the exterior surfaces, a user must select the INTERIOR heat transfer surface materials, defined in screen 4. It’s important to note that interior heat transfer surfaces may ultimately transfer little or no heat, especially when all zones have identical setpoints and schedules. In such cases, users should not agonize over the details. However, it is key to select surfaces of appropriate thermal mass.
At this point, a user defines doors and windows on screens 5 and 6 respectively. eQUEST allows up to 3 types of doors and 3 types of windows in the DD wizard. All doors exist on the ground floor and are entered as “number of doors” per direction. User must also enter the parameters such as size, material, and frame. Much like doors, windows must contain materials, and frame properties (unless frame properties were included with the window material). The window type is assigned by percentage of the wall, and direction.