In the introduction to TRACE 700, we introduced all of the buttons in TRACE 700. In this lesson we will only cover the first portion of the program: building design. Nearly everything about building design affects building energy, but energy information does not always affect building design. Therefore, I suggest we start by eliminating some variables.
In TRACE 700, this can be done by going to the Options menu, selecting operating mode, and choosing ‘Trace Load 700’. You will notice immediately that all plant and economic information is removed. There are also several fields that will be made inactive. In Trace load 700, the only active fields are those that affect the building load.
To some people, the purpose of load calculations is readily obvious, but to the typical energy-modeler it may not be so apparent. Let’s take a moment to determine what we are calculating. The building load is the worst case hour of the year. We need to determine it in order to select the proper air conditioning unit. Because weather varies dramatically from year to year in some climates and building loads can also change rapidly, it is typically best to make some conservative assumptions. One of these assumptions is the use of Design weather which we will get to in a moment.
Entering Project Information
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But first, let’s start with entering project information. This is done the same way whether or not you are doing a load design project or an energy analysis. It is not required but it’s recommended. There are really only two things to say about the project information.
Whatever you type in the description will be displayed in project information box
Some special characters cannot be used such a period or a backslash, as they interfere with the computer coding. In general, the program will not allow you to enter these characters