Varkie,<br><br>I disagree with your statement that eQuest is not appropriate for large buildings because you can't change space names to match architectural names in wizard mode, and the inputs created from the wizard aren't appropriate for all spaces. The wizards are called "Schematic Design Wizard" and "Design Development Wizard" for a reason. They aren't desinged for detail, they're designed to help you make big design decisions quickly. If you want the building to be modeled as closely as possible to the final design, this takes some extra work. Yeah, re-naming spaces is a pain, but at 5 seconds per space, re-naming 1,000 spaces takes about 1.5 hours, well worth the effort. If you re-name zones too, maybe it's 3 hours total.<br>
<br>Yeah, some things about eQuest are clumsy, like why does it create one underground wall (and floor) consturction for each surface, when only 4-5 are needed for the whole model? Why does it re-create occupancy, lighting and micellaneous equipment schedules for each shell, even if the use is the same? And why does it create tons of duplicate infiltration schedules? BUT... this takes an hour or two to clean up, and then you have a decently flexible model that gives you reasonable results in a matter of minutes. Versus a program that takes 1-2 hours to run. I've done a few LEED projects in Trace700 and it's painful modeling a design case and four (rotated) base cases at 1-2 hours each, especially if you then find you've left anything out.<br>
<br>I definitely agree that there are some major things missing in all modeling programs, which is why I'm putting together a "Master Wish List" of modeler's desires. If you have things that you would like to be able to model, things you'd like to be able to model more easily, or things that you can do that you feel are very important, please send me your list. I currently have contact info for about 10 people representing various simulation programs who want to know what we want! Now's our chance to have some input!<br>
<br>--<br>Karen<br><br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 2:15 PM, Varkie C Thomas <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:thomasv@iit.edu">thomasv@iit.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div><p>Graham,</p>
<p>The comment below stands out which might also be the reason for not using EnergyPlus on large projects.</p><div class="Ih2E3d">
<p><span style="color: firebrick;">- DOE-2.2 runs much quicker. For comparable 30,000 m2 buildings I would say DOE-2 runs in 1 minute and IES VE with an APhvac network probably 1-2 hours. If you through in Macroflo it probably adds another hour of simulation time. As a result </span><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; color: firebrick;">iterative trial and error debugging</span></b><span style="color: firebrick;"> has to be done on a 1-2 week period.</span></p>
</div><p>Large building projects (1 to 10 million sqft) with up to 1,000 zones and 70 systems ranging in size from 10,000 to 200,000 cfm (pardon the English units - the USA & the Bahamas are not going to switch to metric) require several iterative runs to get the input errors fixed. Breaking up the project into small pieces is not a solution since it affects demand costs, central plants and other components. I have worked on such projects using DOE2.1E and TRACE600/700. </p>
<p>eQUEST is not suitable for such projects either. One of its limitations is that you cannot enter the space names shown on architectural drawings. Others include assuming all the input data and making all the decisions for you when you enter the type of building. 1000 zones means 1000 infiltration schedules and multiples of other building components. It is unrealistic to check all the input created by eQUEST for errors. Fixing everything to match the exact project data has to be done in detailed edit. Detailed edit means you lose access to the graphical method of creating the building model from AutoCAD drawings which is the main benefit of this program.</p>
Varkie<div class="Ih2E3d"><br><br></div></div></blockquote></div><br>