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Re: [EnergyPlus_Support] Re: Mandating EnergyPlus: Is it the right tool for energy code compliance?



I would be very bothered by that as well! E+ is useful for compliance, but forcing everyone into a single interface with limited features is in my opinion the wrong way to do it.  It takes away from the nice part about E+, the flexibility that is. 



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Jeremiah D. Crossett  | Senior Analyst  | LEED Green Associate 
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120 E. Pritchard St.  | Asheboro, NC 27203 
â??â??
 | Mobile 503-688-8951
  





On Wed, Aug 20, 2014 at 10:19 AM, danjoh99@xxxxxxxxx [EnergyPlus_Support] <EnergyPlus_Support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
 

Thanks for the great E+ advice from this experienced forum. 
It may be helpful for the group to know that EnergyPlus is locked inside the CBECC-Com GUI, and so is the IDF file. There is no way that I have found to bring an IDF into CBECC-Com, so any analysis done outside CBECC-com would have to be rebuilt as an entirely new model within CBECC-Com for code compliance. The people doing this work are small businesses charging by the hour, so building more the one model is probably not going to happen, there is just no fee for it. 

A related problem is that geometry usually changes over the course of design. As CBECC-com currently operates, any geometry changes require building an entirely new model (but perhaps not, if the user could manually update the XYZ coordinates of each polygon? These are accessible.)

While it's tru e that CBECC-com allows/requires geometry import from Sketchup using the OpenStudio plug-in, the imported data is stripped down to the SDDxml format, which is essentially just geometry, as far as I can tell, and it must be re-built in CBECC-Com. I think this is all by design. 

I just tried to take the OSM file created by CBECC-com, which contains HVAC and government-approved materials and constructions, and re-open it in OpenStudio to make modifications. I re-saved a new SDDxml, and tried to import this back into CBECC-Com. I clicked "run" and got 42 errors, starting with "no weather file," no latitude/longitude, no materials, no assemblies, no mechanical. This had all been stripped by the SDDxml format for import to CBECC-com.

So the interoperability is non-existent. Other tools that work with IDF/OSM formats would have to operate on a separate/second model. Again, it's small businesses on cost-competitive fees doing this work, and the customers generally just want a permit and incentive funding, they won't understand the complications. Thanks, Dan





â??â??
Jeremiah D. Crossett  | Senior Analyst  | LEED Green Associate 
â??â??
120 E. Pritchard St.  | Asheboro, NC 27203 
â??â??
 | Mobile 503-688-8951
  





On Wed, Aug 20, 2014 at 10:19 AM, danjoh99@xxxxxxxxx [EnergyPlus_Support] <EnergyPlus_Support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
 

Thanks for the great E+ advice from this experienced forum. 
It may be helpful for the group to know that EnergyPlus is locked inside the CBECC-Com GUI, and so is the IDF file. There is no way that I have found to bring an IDF into CBECC-Com, so any analysis done outside CBECC-com would have to be rebuilt as an entirely new model within CBECC-Com for code compliance. The people doing this work are small businesses charging by the hour, so building more the one model is probably not going to happen, there is just no fee for it. 

A related problem is that geometry usually changes over the course of design. As CBECC-com currently operates, any geometry changes require building an entirely new model (but perhaps not, if the user could manually update the XYZ coordinates of each polygon? These are accessible.)

While it's tru e that CBECC-com allows/requires geometry import from Sketchup using the OpenStudio plug-in, the imported data is stripped down to the SDDxml format, which is essentially just geometry, as far as I can tell, and it must be re-built in CBECC-Com. I think this is all by design. 

I just tried to take the OSM file created by CBECC-com, which contains HVAC and government-approved materials and constructions, and re-open it in OpenStudio to make modifications. I re-saved a new SDDxml, and tried to import this back into CBECC-Com. I clicked "run" and got 42 errors, starting with "no weather file," no latitude/longitude, no materials, no assemblies, no mechanical. This had all been stripped by the SDDxml format for import to CBECC-com.

So the interoperability is non-existent. Other tools that work with IDF/OSM formats would have to operate on a separate/second model. Again, it's small businesses on cost-competitive fees doing this work, and the customers generally just want a permit and incentive funding, they won't understand the complications. Thanks, Dan




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Posted by: Jeremiah Crossett <jcrossett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>


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