[Equest-users] Routing exhaust air

Thu May 20 08:16:06 PDT 2010

Yes, I agree with Nick.  You should be able to specify the toilet zone as a plenum and then enter your exhaust parameters under the zone’s Outdoor Air tab.  Plenums can have direct exhaust specified, but unconditioned zones cannot.  You can assign the zone to whatever system makes sense for the design; just make sure you don’t add any thermostat schedules to the zone.  If the parent system’s return path is specified as “duct”, then having the toilets designated as a plenum shouldn’t have an impact on the return air temp.  

Thanks,

                         DAKOTA KELLEY                                                              

                                Project Designer

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http://www.teliospc.com <http://www.teliospc.com/>           3535 Travis St. Suite 115 

dakotak at teliospc.com <mailto:dakotak at teliospc.com>              Dallas, TX 75204 

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From: Nick Caton [mailto:ncaton at smithboucher.com] 
Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2010 9:53 AM
To: Katherine Roberts
Cc: equest-users at lists.onebuilding.org; Dakota Kelley
Subject: RE: [Equest-users] Routing exhaust air

Kat,

The discussion copied below, and particularly Dakota’s response on top, may help you to shape your solution.  If the restrooms only have an exhaust fan in the real design, with makeup air from surrounding spaces, you probably shouldn’t be defining a system for that zone…?

~Nick

NICK CATON, E.I.T.

PROJECT ENGINEER

25501 west valley parkway

olathe ks 66061

direct 913 344.0036

fax 913 345.0617

Check out our new web-site @ www.smithboucher.com 

-----Original Message-----
From: equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org [mailto:equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of Katherine Roberts
Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2010 8:33 AM
To: equest-users at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: [Equest-users] Exhaust only zones with make-up air

Dear eQUEST-users,

I am trying to model a toilet zone with an exhaust only system and which

uses make-up air from the surrounding space. I'm using a UVT system to

try and simulate this but cannot get the 'hours outside thermal-range'

to reduce - likely because there is no cooling in this system and it is

not getting any cooled air from the surrounding zones. Does anyone have

any ideas how to model this?

Thanks

Kat

Dr Katherine Roberts

Engineer

Environmental Physics London

13 Fitzroy Street

Arup W1T 4BQ

Tel: +0044 (0)207 755 5454

Internal freecall: 55454

www.arup.com

From: equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org [mailto:equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of Dakota Kelley
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 2:58 PM
To: Lars Fetzek; equest-users at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: Re: [Equest-users] Routing exhaust air

Lars,

1) Sounds like it should be "unconditioned" if you have no return air devices in the core zone.  Specifying unconditioned vs. plenum depends on whether or not you want eQUEST to consider the zone to be a return air path for its parent system.  Plenum is like saying "I'm not conditioned but I do impact the return air temperature" and unconditioned is like saying "I'm not conditioned and I have no impact on supply or return air".  From what you described, it's definitely not conditioned.

2) If the zone is unconditioned, the parent system is irrelevant.  However, a parent system must always be defined for every zone per DOE2 protocol (no orphan zones, no orphan systems).  If it's a plenum, it should be assigned to the system to which the return air goes.  

3) My understanding is that eQUEST doesn't believe in passive exhaust between zones.  Without seeing the dynamics of the actual design, I would think you could just exhaust directly from the office zone.  I believe you're trying to account for 1) exhaust fan power 2) the exhaust's heat extraction from the office zone; exhausting directly from the office zone would accomplish this.  Whether the exhaust goes directly outside or through a "middleman" zone isn't very important if the middleman zone is unconditioned.  So, I would argue that the core zone creates a low pressure area that has to draw air from somewhere, and that somewhere is the office zone.  Yes, there's more of a delay involved with the indirect method, but I wouldn't get too technical with it if we're only talking about a couple hundred CFM.  The biggest problem I see with what I've suggested is if you're exhausting more than your OA CFM for the office zone.  In that case, the office zone's OA CFM will be increased to match the exhaust CFM.

On the other hand, if we're talking about a big exhaust fan that is passively exhausting a lot of air from multiple zones, you could take my suggestion and break it up so that you're simulating smaller "direct" exhaust fans for the affected zones - just make sure the individual fan powers & flows add up to the real fan's power & flow.

Thanks,

Dakota Kelley

Telios MEP Engineers

________________________________

From: Lars Fetzek [mailto:lfetzek at phoenixeng.us]
Sent: Tue 9/15/2009 3:07 PM
To: equest-users at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: [Equest-users] Routing exhaust air

eQuesters,

    Some of you might recall the e-mails (below, but probably not necessary to re-read) from early August.  Since then, my problem has simplified, but the solution is not so clear to me.

    Basically, I have exhaust fans for a particular shell located in a "core" zone made of restrooms and an electrical room.  No supply or return air devices exist in this core zone.  Rather, the core zone gets its air from transfer through doorways (and maybe one passive transfer duct) from a large open office zone.  (Note: Insofar as the core zone does not have an HVAC system, per se, Vikram's excellent previous answer seems inapplicable now.)

    Here are the questions:

1.  When using eQuest, shall I deem the core zone "unconditioned" or "plenum" or "conditioned"?

2.  What HVAC system, if any, shall I tell eQuest that the core zone belongs to?  Is there even a way, if appropriate, to tell eQuest that a zone does not belong to an HVAC system?

3.  How can I explain to eQuest that the office zone exhausts (passively) to the core zone, which then exhausts via fans to the outside?

    Thank you all in advance for your help - and to Vikram for his previous response.

Lars Fetzek, EI

Phoenix Engineering Group

Tampa, Florida

 Lars,

Not sure if this is what you're looking to do. I haven't tried this for
a chain of more than two zones, but you can specify the outside air
coming from a particular zone in eQUEST using the "OA-FROM-SYSTEM"
keyword. You have to be careful with this to define the OA system before
the system it feeds (i.e. if system 1 has an OA-FROM system2, but system
2 has not been defined yet in the INP file, you will get an error. 

Another thing to watch out for is that when you use the OA-FROM, I don't
think eQUEST calculates the cooling effect of the ventilation air. You
might have to trick the program into accounting for that using an
internal energy source (process) with a negative value. This is easier
with a constant volume OA supply, but if you really want to you could
write a schedule for the VAV supply - it's pretty tricky. 

Vikram Sami, LEED AP 
Direct Phone 404-253-1466 | Direct Fax 404-253-1366 

LORD, AECK & SARGENT ARCHITECTURE

From: equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org
[mailto:equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of Lars
Fetzek
Sent: Monday, August 10, 2009 9:47 AM
To: equest-users at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: [Equest-users] Exhaust air routes

Hello,

    The building floor that I am presently modeling has several
conditioned zones and two unconditioned zones.  The conditioned zones
are various offices.  The unconditioned zones are restrooms and an
electrical room.  The conditioned zones exhaust to each other and,
ultimately, to the unconditioned zones via hallways, doorways, etc.  The
unconditioned zones exhaust to the outside (via fans).

    How can I explain to eQuest that, for example, conditioned zone A
exhausts to conditioned zone B?  Also, how can I explain to eQuest that
conditioned zone D exhausts X% to the electrical room (and thus to
outdoor exhaust fans) and Y% to conditioned zone C?

    In case it matters, the ceiling is open and the return ductwork
terminates in one spot.  Accordingly, even return air must flow among
the conditioned zones.

    Thanks, as always, for your helpful replies.

Lars Fetzek, EI

Phoenix Engineering Group

Tampa, Florida

________________________________

From: Lars Fetzek [mailto:lfetzek at phoenixeng.us] 
Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 3:36 PM
To: 'Bach Tsan'; 'equest-users at lists.onebuilding.org'
Subject: RE: [Equest-users] Input/Schedules/Unused parameters ;what is ok to delete?

Bach,

    Yes, I have.  However, the technique is beyond explanation.  Just trial-and-error, using the DOE2-2 dictionary, and gradually learning and torchering yourself will lead you to successful .inp editing.  Nobody can really teach or explain this.

Lars Fetzek, EI

Phoenix Engineering Group

Tampa, Florida

________________________________

From: equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org [mailto:equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of Bach Tsan
Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2009 11:58 AM
To: equest-users at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: [Equest-users] Input/Schedules/Unused parameters ;what is ok to delete?

Hello fellow equest users,

I was wondering if anyone has tried to clear out all unused parameters prior to running the equest model?

I notice that the software “loads” all the schedules and parameters; and if deleting them in the .inp file would speed things up. 

I tried it with a default sample model, but got various errors since some items are required for the model to run. Has anyone generated a script to run to clear all unnecessary items before running the model?

Thanks

Bach Tsan PE, LEED AP

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