[Bldg-sim] Medium-Office HVAC question

Field, Kristin Kristin.Field at nrel.gov
Thu May 26 13:34:41 PDT 2011


Alex,

Sorry to take a little while to respond.  You are correct that the medium office reference building has a gas furnace and electric reheat.  We actually received some opposite industry feedback from what you heard.  We heard that installing gas at the terminal level (vs. on the roof at the RTU for the central furnace) for reheat wouldn't be done for a building of that size - that installing electric reheat would be simpler and, therefore, more common.  Same for hydronic reheat, especially if the central heating wasn't hydronic.  I'm curious if your colleague's answer would change depending on the size of the building.

This highlights one of the difficulties of creating one-size-fits-all reference buildings - there are a lot of different opinions out there!  That said, if there is a large consensus against having electric reheat in the medium office, we would consider changing it whenever any future modifications are released.  Unfortunately, I can't make any promises about a timeline for that right now.

Anyone else feel like chiming in for the most appropriate system type?  For your "reference," the medium office building is three stories and about 53,000 sf total.

Kristin

P.S. You're welcome, and I'm glad you've found the reference buildings to be a valuable resource.

***********************************************************************
Kristin M. Field
Mechanical Engineer
Electricity, Resources, and Building Systems Integration Center
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
1617 Cole Blvd., MS RSF 202
Golden, CO  80401
303.384.7376 phone
303.630.2055 fax

From: Alex Krickx [mailto:akrickx at seriousmaterials.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2011 3:24 PM
To: bldg-sim at lists.onebuilding.org
Cc: Field, Kristin
Subject: Medium-Office HVAC question

Hello,

First- thanks for the reference buildings! They are a great resource.

I had a question about the HVAC system that is in both the 'Post 1980' and 'New 2004' Medium Office Reference building (IDFs attached). Does the HVAC system have a gas hook-up for the furnace (item coil:heating:gas) and then use electricity for the reheat (item coil:heating:electric)? I asked a colleague of mine about this, and he said "You would never build a job with gas available on-site and electric reheat, even in the 80s". My background is more on Building Envelope and also simulation/software more than it is in Mechanical Systems, so I don't know one way or the other. I was hoping that you could shed some light on the system that was selected.

We're hoping to use the system as a baseline to investigate window retrofits, and pick the HVAC system that we would most likely encounter in existing buildings. Any information you can provide would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Alex Krickx

Alex Krickx, LEED AP
Building Energy Specialist
[cid:image001.jpg at 01CC1BB0.C752ACE0]
1250 Elko Dr, Sunnyvale, CA 94089
(t) 408.541.8124

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From: bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org [mailto:bldg-sim-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of Field, Kristin
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2010 2:07 PM
To: bldg-sim at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: [Bldg-sim] Reference Buildings v1.3_5.0 available on Website

All,

The U.S. DOE Commercial Reference Buildings have been updated to version 1.3_5.0 and posted on the following Website:

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/commercial_initiative/reference_buildings.html

As with the previous release, there are 3 vintages of 16 different building types modeled in 16 U.S. climates (3 x 16 x 16 = 768).  Users can download:


*         All 768 EnergyPlus 5.0 input files (.idf format)

*         All 768 EnergyPlus table output files (.htm format)

*         All 48 "Scorecard" spreadsheets for each building type in each vintage, summarizing input and output details

*         Zip file of the 16 TMY2 weather files used (.epw format)

*         List of changes in models between versions 1.3_5.0 and 1.2_4.0

*         Table of EUIs [kBtu/sf/yr] for all models in each vintage

*         Archived versions of previous releases for above files

We appreciate all the valuable feedback we've received from users of these models.  Much of it has been incorporated into the changes between versions.

Regards,
Kristin Field

***********************************************************************
Kristin M. Field
Engineer II - Mechanical
Electricity, Resources, and Building Systems Integration Center
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
1617 Cole Blvd., MS 5202
Golden, CO  80401
303.384.7376 phone
303.384.7540 fax

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