[Equest-users] eQuest difficulty

Nick Caton ncaton at smithboucher.com
Mon Mar 7 15:35:10 PST 2011


Hey there, Buggapuppy Bubba Bailey (hands-down... coolest handle I've ever noticed)!

 

I've found myself entering hot water heater info in detailed mode of late, so I jumped back to wizards in a dummy model to investigate... indeed, it looks like entering various EF values has zero effect whatsoever on the model generated by the wizards!  There may be some quirky workaround to cause this input to function, but I'd suggest working from detailed mode instead for the time being:

 

If you'll double click your heater in detailed (post-wizards), you'll see two key inputs:  Tank UA (heat loss = this number times the delta-T), and heating input ratio (HIR) for gas, or EIR for electric.

 

If my basic understanding of EF is correct, it's basically rolling the heating efficiency of the unit into a single number that also accounts for jacket losses.  I think you can at least roughly make the comparison you're trying to make by (1) setting Tank UA = 0 (removing jacket losses from the model) and (2) entering HIR or EIR as the inverse of the EF (i.e. EF=.75 à EIR = 1.333).  To be clear:  this approximation, rolling EF into an EIR or HIR, would be less acceptable for your comparison if you anticipate the jacket losses to be fairly significant, for whatever reason (storage heater located outside, for example).

 

If you're trying to ultimately do a lifecycle cost analysis, be sure to get your rates defined correctly in the wizards prior to detailed mode ;).  

 

Someone else may be able to chime in regarding how to get Wizard-entered EF figures to correctly translate from the wizards... I'd personally be interested to learn whether there's a "right" way to start with EF and determine the Tank UA and EIR/HIR (cursory google searches led me nowhere)... but in the interest of time I'd chalk this issue up as one of those "to be fixed" items for the developers...

 

~Nick

 

 

NICK CATON, E.I.T.

PROJECT ENGINEER

Smith & Boucher Engineers

25501 west valley parkway

olathe ks 66061

direct 913 344.0036

fax 913 345.0617

www.smithboucher.com 

 

From: equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org [mailto:equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of Buggapuppy Bubba
Sent: Monday, March 07, 2011 4:17 PM
To: equest-users at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: [Equest-users] eQuest difficulty

 

I am new to eQuest. I am successfully running eQuest on Win XP. I am trying to run a simple baseline case for verying incremental non-residential water heating measures.  I select the building type and the location (Sacramento, CA) , non Title 24, and change only the EF value for electric water heater (storage type) starting with 0.90, 0.95, 2.0 and so on. The output gives me annual kWh consumption for water heating , but it is the same inspite of my changing the EF parameter. Am i doing somethign wrong.

 

I would appreciate your help at the earliest possible.

 

- Bailey

 

 

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