I am a new user of Energy Simulator. I would like to ask for help with regards to roofs. I have a building where there are internal ceilings for the individual rooms.
Above the internal ceilings there is an exposed pitched roof.
When I produce the 3D model and add the shape of the roof, the software extends the room walls and room volume to match the shape of the pitched roof assuming that the rooms have vaulted ceilings and not rooms with internal ceilings.
Do I not add the shape of the roof to my model and assume that the roof is a flat roof, or is there a setting to tell the software that there is an internal ceiling between the rooms and the exposed roof. I watched your learning video and it doesn't say anything.
Hi Sean,
Many thanks for raising this - I agree that such an option should be incorporated. I understand that development work is planned on the roof modeller so I will log your request as an enhancement.
For now, you can model this by using a Plenum room as your "attic" space.
Say for example your roof rises to 5m, and your rooms have a ceiling at 3m, when entering the room you could enter:
Then, trace the roof and set up over the Plenum room.
Hope that clarifies. I will create a WIki article to expand on this further and will send to you once complete.
Shane Regan | Principle Building Performance Support Engineer
Hi Shane, Thanks. I think, and I maybe wrong, that your answer assumes that the roof is flat at 2.0m above the ceiling and thus the plenum is consistent height., however in the case of a pitched roof the plenum height will vary from 0m on the roof edge to whatever the height of the apex.
Hi Sean, no this shouldn't be a problem - the plenums will initially be flat but will be adjusted to the pitch when you setup the roof.
I have created this article to assist you with the workflow.
Thanks Shane. That's brilliant and it has worked for me! One point that i would mention is that the floor height should be set to the apex height of the building.
Hi Sean, great! Glad to hear that did the trick. Thanks for the feedback, I will update the Wiki accordingly. If you need anything else let us know.
Hi Shane, I am have completed my model and now it has lost all the room data and my simulation cannot be done, even though the building is shown in isometric and other views. When the file initially opens it shows the room data, and then deletes it. Why? I have sent you a reply with a file attachment by email, I very much hope that you can resolve this? This is not the first time it has happened this week.
Hi Sean, that is very unusual. what exactly preceded this? Was there a crash or error perhaps? I will indeed most likely need to see the project in question however if you replied to the notification email from Communities I will not receive this. Could you please upload this to this link.
(Note we will need the entire Workset folder as shown here).
Hi Shane,
I have uploaded the complete folder as requested. Hope you have got all that you required. If not let me know.
No nothing unusual happened before the data was lost. I saved the .dgn file as normal, and as I have been doing all along. It was after the save that the room data disappeared. Not only the has it .dgn lost the room data it has also lost all the design parameters , and this is what happened earlier in the week, and I started afresh.
I have received the files successfully, thanks. I have reproduced what you describe and I have referred this to our developers so that they can look at the underlying code. I will let you know as soon as I have any feedback.
If this is a recurring issue then it perhaps may be related to how you are creating projects - are you making sure to create a new Workset for each project, as below?