This chapter specifies for each building descriptor the rules that apply to the proposed design and to the standard design.
Building descriptors provide information about the proposed design and the standard design. In this chapter, the building descriptors are discussed in the generic terms of engineering drawings and specifications. By using generic building descriptors, this 'manual avoids bias toward one particular energy simulation engine. The building descriptors in this chapter are compatible with commonly used simulation software.
Each energy simulation program has its own way of accepting building information. EnergyPlus, for instance, uses a comma delimited data file called an IDF file. DOE-2 uses BDL (building design language) to accept information. It is the responsibility of the compliance software to translate the generic terms used in this chapter into the “native language” of the simulation program. Figure 7 illustrates the flow of information.
The HVAC system in the standard design depends on the primary building activity, the size of the building and the number of floors. Details about these systems are provided in subsequent sections.
Many of the building descriptors have a one-to-one relationship between the proposed design and the standard design, for example, every wall in the proposed design has a corresponding wall in the standard design. However, for HVAC systems, this one-to-one relationship generally does not hold. The HVAC system serving the proposed design and the standard design may be completely different, each with different components, etc.
HVAC system in the standard design shall be selected from Table 6 –System Map for Covered Processes, and be based on building type, number of floors, conditioned floor area, and heating source. Additionally, the selected system shall conform to the descriptions in Table 2 – HVAC System Descriptions.
For systems 1, 3, 7, 10 and 11 each thermal zone shall be modeled with its own HVAC system. For systems 5, 6, and 9, each floor shall be modeled with a separate HVAC system. Floors with identical thermal zones and occupancies can be grouped for modeling purposes. The standard design heating source is natural gas.
|
Building Type |
Standard Design |
|
Residential or hotel/motel guestrooms in a building with 3 or fewer floors |
System 1 - PTAC |
|
Residential or Hotel/motel Guestrooms in a building with 4 or more floors |
System 2 - FPFC |
|
Warehouse and light manufacturing space types (per the Appendix 5.4A Schedule column) that do not include cooling in the proposed design |
System 9 - HEATVENT |
|
Covered Process |
|
|
All other space types |
See Table 5 – Non-Residential Spaces (not including covered processes) |
|
Building Area |
Floors |
Standard Design |
Description |
|
≤ 10,000 ft2 |
1 floor |
PSZ |
Packaged Single Zone |
|
>1 floor |
PVAV |
Packaged VAV Unit | |
|
10,000 ft2 – 150,000 ft2 |
Any |
PVAV |
Packaged VAV Unit |
|
>150,000 ft2 |
1 floor |
SZVAV |
Single-zone VAV Unit |
|
>1 floor |
VAVS |
Built-up VAV Unit |
|
Building Type or Space Type |
Floors |
Baseline System |
|
Total computer room design cooling load is over 3,000,000 Btu/h Note: if the user chooses computer room for the space type and enters a receptacle load less than 20 W/ft2 then the proposed and baseline shall use a receptacle load of 20 W/ft2. |
Any |
System 10 – CRAH Unit |
|
Computer rooms that do not meet the conditions for System 10, CRAH |
Any |
System 11 – CRAC Unit |
|
Laboratory Space |
Any |
System 12 – LAB |
|
Restaurant Kitchen |
Any |
System 13 – KITCH |
|
System Type |
Description |
Detail |
|
System 1 – PTAC |
Packaged Terminal Air Conditioner |
Ductless single-zone DX unit with hot water natural gas boiler |
|
System 2 – FPFC |
Four-Pipe Fan Coil |
Central plant with terminal units with hot water and chilled water coils, with separate ventilation source |
|
System 3 – PSZ |
Packaged Single Zone |
Single-zone constant volume DX unit with gas heating |
|
System 4 – RESERVED |
|
|
|
System 5 – PVAV |
Packaged VAV Unit |
VAV reheat system; packaged variable volume DX unit with gas heating and with hot water reheat terminal units |
|
System 6 – VAVS |
Built-up VAV Unit |
Variable volume system with chilled water and hot water coils, water-cooled chiller, tower and central boiler |
|
System 7 – SZVAV |
Packaged Single-Zone VAV Unit |
Single-zone variable volume DX unit with variable-speed drive and gas heating |
|
System 8 – RESERVED |
|
|
|
System 9 – HEATVENT |
Heating and Ventilation Only |
Gas heating and ventilation |
|
System 10 – CRAH |
Computer Room Air Handler |
Built-up variable volume unit with chilled water, no heating |
|
System 11 – CRAC |
Computer Room Air Conditioner |
Packaged variable volume DX unit with no heating |
|
System 12 – LAB |
Laboratory HVAC System |
For floor area < 50,000 ft2:packaged variable volume system with 100% OA and minimum ventilation rate of 6 ACH For Floor Area>= 50,000 ft2, built-up VAV (VAVS) with water-cooled chiller and central boiler |
|
System 13 – KITCH |
Kitchen HVAC System |
Dedicated makeup air unit (MAU) – CHW if building is VAVS, DX otherwise. Dedicated exhaust fan. |
Separate occupancies in mixed use buildings are served by separate standard design systems. Examples include residential spaces located over retail and other similar conditions. (See the PRM, G3.1.1, Exception a.)See Space Use Classification Considerations in Chapter 2 for a detailed description of when spaces with different occupancies may be served by a single system. For example a 100,000 ft2 building that had retail and restaurant on floor 1, offices on floors 2-4, a 20 ton computer room on each office floor, and residential on floors 5-7 would have the following systems in the standard design:
•A KITCH serving the restaurant
•A VAVS serving all retail and office spaces
•Separate CRAC systems serving each computer room
•Separate FPFC systems serving each residential space
The baseline building shall have only one central chilled or hot water plant, so if there are multiple systems that incorporate a plant (e.g. CRAH and VAVS) then a single plant shall serve all plant loads.
For additions and alterations projects, the standard design building shall follow the same rules as the HVAC system map above, except that the building that will follow the logic of the system map rules may be the modeled building (the addition or alteration alone, or the addition or alteration and a portion of the existing building), or the entire building (the entire existing building, plus an addition, if present).
The decision on the existing building basis for applying the system map rules is:
General System Modification
The following rules apply to any building that has both heating and cooling systems.
1. Plant: if the change in plant cooling capacity exceeds 50% of the existing total cooling capacity of all cooling systems, the system map is based on the entire building characteristics (see Section 5.2.2).
2. Airside System: if the change in cooling capacity of the airside system (air handling units, DX packaged units, for example) of all cooling sources other than chilled water exceeds 50% of the existing rated cooling capacity for the building, then the HVAC system map is based on the entire building characteristics. Also, if the combined net cooling capacity of all altered airside systems exceeds 90% of the building cooling capacity, then the HVAC system map is based on the entire building characteristics.
3. Zone Level: if the change in the cooling capacity of the zonal systems (PTAC units, FPFC units, for example), exceeds 50% of the rated total cooling capacity of all zonal systems in the existing building, then the HVAC system map is based on the entire existing building characteristics. Also, if the combined net cooling capacity of all altered zonal systems exceeds 90% of the building cooling capacity, then the HVAC system map is based on the entire building characteristics. This applies only to systems who
4. If none of these three conditions apply above, then the HVAC system map is based on the building characteristics of the modeled building for additions and alterations compliance, which may be just a portion of the entire building.
Since some additions and alterations projects will trigger the HVAC system map for the standard design, the user must enter a minimum set of building characteristics for the entire building (existing plus any addition): existing building floor area and number of stories must be entered.
Heating Only System ModificationThe following rules apply to any building that only has heating only systems.
1. Plant: if the change in plant heating capacity exceeds 50% of the existing total space heating capacity of all heating systems, the system map is based on the entire building characteristics.
2. Airside System: if the change in heating capacity of the airside system (unitary DX equipment, heat pumps, for example) of all heating sources other than heating hot water exceeds 50% of the existing rated cooling capacity for the building, then the HVAC system map is based on the entire building characteristics. Also, if the combined net heating capacity of all altered airside systems exceeds 90% of the building heating capacity, then the HVAC system map is based on the entire building characteristics.
3. Zone Level: if the change in the heating capacity of the zonal systems (PTAC units, for example), exceeds 50% of the rated total heating capacity of all zonal systems in the existing building, then the HVAC system map is based on the entire existing building characteristics. Also, if the combined net cooling capacity of all altered zonal systems exceeds 90% of the building cooling capacity, then the HVAC system map is based on the entire building characteristics.
4. If none of these three conditions apply above, then the HVAC system map is based on the building characteristics of the modeled building for additions and alterations compliance, which may be just a portion of the entire building.
Since some additions and alterations projects will trigger the HVAC system map for the standard design, the user must enter a minimum set of building characteristics for the entire building (existing plus any addition): existing building floor area and number of stories must be entered.
Building descriptors are grouped under objects or building components. A wall or exterior surface (an object) would have multiple building descriptors dealing with its geometry, thermal performance, etc. Each building descriptor contains the following pieces of information.
Building Descriptor Title
Applicability
Information on when the building descriptor applies to the proposed design
Definition
A definition for the building descriptor
Units
The units that are used to prescribe the building descriptor. A “List” indicates that a fixed set of choices applies and the user shall only be allowed to enter one of the values in the list.
Input Restrictions
Any restrictions on information that may be entered for the proposed design
Standard Design
This defines the value for the “Standard Design” or baseline building is applied for this building descriptor. A value of “Same as proposed” indicates that the building descriptor is neutral; that is, the value is set to match the proposed design value. In many cases, the value may be fixed, or may be determined from a table lookup. In some cases the input may not be applicable: for example, heat recovery effectiveness is not applicable because the standard design (baseline building) does not have heat recovery.
Compliance projects containing additions and/or alterations require that the user designate each building component (envelope construction assemblies and fenestration, lighting, HVAC and water heating) as either: new, alteration or addition. Many of the building descriptors in Chapter 5 of this ACM Reference Manual do not have explicit definitions for the standard design when the project is an addition and/or alterations project. For these terms, the standard design rules for existing, altered components follow the same rule as the standard design rule for new construction.
For example, the receptacle loads are prescribed for both the proposed design building and standard design building for a new construction compliance project. For additions or alterations to an existing building, since the rules are not explicitly defined in the building descriptor in section 5.3.3, the same rules apply to the proposed design and standard design for the additions or alterations compliance project.
Building descriptors that are prescribed for the proposed and standard design models for new construction projects are also prescribed for the proposed and standard design models for additions and alterations projects.
For additions and alterations projects, there are three different modeling approaches that can be taken when modeling the existing building:
(1) Model the addition or altered portion alone. For this option, the addition or alteration is modeled as a standalone building, and the boundary or interface between the addition and/or alteration and the preexisting building is modeled as an adiabatic partition (an adiabatic wall, ceiling, roof or floor).
(2) Model the entire existing building and any additions and alterations. For this option, the existing, unaltered components of the building would be modeled “as designed” (as specified by the user), with the standard design component components modeled the same as the proposed design.
(3) Model part of the existing building and any additions and alterations. For this option, all components of the existing, unaltered building (HVAC, lighting, envelope, spaces) would have to be distinguished from the components that are added and altered. The existing building components would be modeled “as designed” (as specified by the user), with the standard design components modeled the same as the proposed design. Added or altered building components would follow the rules for additions and alterations.
When either option 1 or option 3 is used, the adiabatic partitions shall not be considered as part of gross exterior wall area or gross exterior roof area for window wall ratio (WWR) and skylight roof ratio (SRR) calculations.