Guided Tour: Working With Energy Scheming

This introductory guided tour of Energy Scheming is based upon Chapter 2 of the Energy Scheming Manual. It is designed to cover the most important features of the application. To begin working with Energy Scheming, it is not necessary to carry out each step in the sequence. You can add as much or as little information as you wish, because the built-in defaults will apply unless you specify otherwise.

If you follow the tour screens in sequence, you will:

  • Start up the program
  • Create a new building file
  • Use the drawing tools
  • Open a sample building file
  • Do a "Take-off" of a south-facing window
  • Evaluate that window for solar heating
  • Redesign the south glazing to improve solar heating
  • Redraw the building elevation
  • Format and view the Graphic Report
  • View the Thermographics
  • Consult the Advisor
  • Save the building file
  • Quit the program

When you finish the tour you will be ready to explore Energy Scheming on your own, following the procedures in Chapter 5.

 

The Tour

Taking the Guided Tour of Energy Scheming
1) Install the Energy Scheming application onto your hard drive, if it has not been installed already. (If you are working in the lab, Energy Scheming will probably be installed.)

2) Position the Web Browser window (displaying this page and file) as a 2" wide strip on the right hand side of the screen. When you launch the Energy Scheming application in the next steps, you may need to resize the Energy Scheming window to fit in the left had side of the screen.




Important Point : Please note that the initial screen which Energy Scheming displays will cover the whole screen!! Make note of the next few steps, or follow the procedure in Chapter Two of the Energy Scheming Manual (the printed copy).


Begin This Tour From The Desktop

(• Click on some part of the desktop which is not the Web Browser.)

Opening Energy Scheming

3) •• Double click on the Energy Scheming folder which was created when it was installed.

4) •• Double click on the Energy Scheming application icon (which should be located in the Energy Scheming folder).

Preliminary Screen

ES Logo

The drawing palette is grayed, and most of the menu is disabled.

• Click on New from the File Menu.

 

Warning: Do not click on Open Building File.



Resize the Energy Scheming window to appear on the left of the screen (as below).



Energy Scheming window (left) Browser window (right)


Basic Project Definition

The next three screens to appear ask you to provide three pieces of data about your building: climate location, building type and building size.

Climate Location

The first screen asks you to specify a climate location. Four representative climates are built into Energy Scheming.

For this sample run, use the default setting, Dodge City, that is already highlighted in the box at the right of the screen.

When you are more familiar with Energy Scheming, you may want to provide data for your own climate.

• Click on OK (or press Return) to continue to the next screen.

Building Type Selection

The next screen asks you to choose between a residential building or a non-residential building.

You will notice that the residential building type is already selected. Use this default setting for now.

• Click on OK (or press Return) to continue.

Building Size

The next screen asks you to specify the size of your proposed building.

To assist you in estimating the size of building you wish to draw, icons of six well-known buildings are shown, with their names and sizes in square feet shown below.

Normally, you would slide the hollow box along the bar by holding down the mouse and moving it to the right or left to select the building size. You may also type in the building size in square feet in the text box at the bottom of the screen. For now, use the default setting of 1200 square feet.

• Click on OK (or press Return) to complete this 3-screen sequence.

You are now back in the drawing environment and ready to draw or paste in a new building.

Drawing Mode: New Building

T-square in Front

The T-square icon on top of the palette is now active, which indicates that you can begin to draw using the palette tools.

The Drawing mode is much like common Macintosh pixel-based paint programs. In this mode, you can sketch a building and its surround, without regard to defining building elements.

You will notice another box partly visible behind the T-square.

If you click • on the box behind, you will see a tape measure icon, which indicates you are in the Takeoff mode.

When this icon is visible you can trace over drawings made in the Draw mode and you can specify the characteristics of building elements. It is similar to the object-based layer in other graphic applications.

T-Square in front indicates the Draw Mode is active.

Tape Measure in front indicates the Takeoff Mode is active.

Clicking on the paired icons allows you to toggle between the two layers or modes.

 

Important Point : We will work in the drawing mode first, to familiarize you with its features, but it is not necessary to make any drawings. Once you have completed the Define Project sequence described above, you can proceed directly into the Takeoff mode.

The drawings you make or paste into Energy Scheming do not affect the calculations. It is the information you measure and specify while you are in the Takeoff mode that is used to create the energy evaluation.

The pull-down menus, title bars, close boxes, scroll bars, etc., all behave according to Macintosh conventions.

Most of the drawing tools in the drawing palette are similar to their counterparts in other drawing applications. If you are not familiar with these tools, refer to the Energy Scheming manual Chapter 1, "Introduction," for a brief explanation of Energy Scheming's conventions and drawing tools.

For now, experiment a little with the tools in the drawing palette.

The erase tool and the pencil change size as you click on different line widths.

The circles always draw from the center.

 

A Sample Building

Now that you've tried out some of the drawing tools, let's go back and call up a sample drawing.

Select Close from the File menu (command - W).

Note : To open a new file, you must close the open file, since you can have only one Energy Scheming file open at a time.

You will see an alert box asking you whether you wish to save changes.

Do not save changes at this time.

• Click on "No."

Now open a file we have prepared for you.

First download the file called 4 Room House.

After downloading, this file will be on the desktop of your computer.

Select Open Building File from the File Menu and search for it on the computer's desktop.

 

When you click on 4 Room House you will see a new screen showing drawings of the house. You will not go through the three-screen Define Project sequence because this was done previously, when the file was first created.

Note : It is possible to redefine the climate location, size, and building type at this time by clicking on Project from the Define Menu. For now, accept the existing defaults.

This schematic sketch is typical of the amount of detail that you need in order to perform an energy analysis with Energy Scheming. At the top of the screen is a south elevation; in the middle is a floor plan, and at the bottom, a west and an east elevation.

The 4 Room House

The drawings may be rendered to unequal levels of detail and the forms shown need not match perfectly between drawings.

 

Takeoff Mode

Now we are ready to move into the Takeoff Mode.

We will start by measuring a window (doing a "takeoff") with the digital tape measure. Then we will proceed to get a solar heating evaluation.

Important Point : It is not necessary to start with a window at this point. You might wish to begin by measuring roofs or floors or any other component in which you are particularly interested. We are doing windows here to demonstrate the window sizing tool and other features.

• Click on the T-square at the top of the drawing palette. The T-square and its drawing palette will be replaced by the measuring tape icon and its takeoff palette.

Warning! The only time you will use the large tape measure at the top of the palette is when you switching from Takeoff Mode to Drawing Mode. At all other times use one of the small tape measure icons within the palette.

• Click on the file cabinet under the Takeoff Palette icon.

A menu will pop up from the cabinet.

Select Elevations.

A "New Elevation" icon will appear.

•• Double click on the "New Elev" icon.

Important Feature: You can reposition any of the icons to another place on the screen by clicking and dragging.

A Drawing Specification window will appear.

Choose Orientation

• Click on the button at the bottom of the compass to indicate that you are creating a specification for a south elevation.

"S Elev." now appears highlighted in the information box at the top of the window.

Choose Scale

There are two options for scaling drawings.

Two columns of radio buttons at the bottom of the window list a series of standard scales. For the guided tour, the scales are for I-P (inch-pound) units. If you have set the units to be SI (metric), then you will see a different set of scales.

Note: Units are set in the Preferences dialog box. To learn more about this, go to Chapter 7.

When using this method with other projects, you may simply click on one of the radio buttons to choose a scale.

But for this tour, we will use the other method which involves using the Scale Tool.

• Click on Scale Tool radio button.

This highlights the double-ended arrow.

In our building, the distance from ground to roof line is 10 feet.

Position the cross hair at ground level on an elevation and drag it to the soffit level of the roof. This creates a thin dimension line.

Type 10 in the Line Length information box.

• Click on the close box at the top left of the window to complete this screen.

Now there is a new icon on the screen, labeled "S Elev."

•• Double click on this icon.

You will see three icons representing specifications for building elements that are relevant to thermal performance.

The take-off information that you will provide for your building will become part of the specifications for each elevation.

Drag the icons to reposition them on the screen if you wish.

••Double click on the Windows/Skylights icon to begin specifying information about the south windows.

You will see the icon for a "New Windows / Skylights Specification."

•• Double click on the icon to begin specifying information about the south windows.

Next you will see a "New Window" window.

When this window first appears on the screen, all that will show is the top left portion. The word Area refers to the area of the window that you will measure with the tape measure tool. At the moment it is 0 because no takeoff has been made.

The other information in this window will be visible if the window is resized.

• Click on the zoom box at the top right corner of the window to make the whole window visible.

You will see that some items in the window are already selected. These are the default settings, which can be changed if you wish. For the purposes of this tour, we will use the default settings.

The images in each cell at the bottom of the screen show the default settings for Exterior Shades, Glazing, and Interior Shades.

• Click on the image in each cell to toggle through all the available choices within the Windows Specification.

For example, there are four choices for "External Shades."

For this tour we will accept the default selections.

If you have made changes, return to the settings you saw when the screen first came up.

Takeoff Pattern

When you measure the window area with the tape measure, its area appears on the screen as a takeoff pattern. The current pattern is showing in the Takeoff Pattern box in the specification window.

Change the default pattern by clicking on the Takeoff Pattern box. A pattern palette pops up, allowing you to select a pattern.

Now we will measure the area of the window.

Important Point: You can do an area takeoff only when a specification window such as this is open.

• Click on the small measuring tape tool.

Remember : Do not click on the large tape measure at the upper left at the top of the palette.

Resize and reposition the New Window Specification and the specification icons on the sketchpad to allow you to see the part of the drawing on which you are working more easily.

Trace over the window on the south elevation.

Precision Takeoff Tool

Depressing the space bar on the keyboard when taking off an area activates Energy Scheming's Precision Takeoff Tool, a "zoom lens" that enlarges the area around the tape end. The Precision Takeoff Tool works when using either the rectangular or polygon takeoff tools.

To use the tool, depress the space bar and a circle with a crosshair will appear at the end point of the tape tool. The area inside the circle shows the pixels of the drawing underneath enlarged so that a more precise takeoff can be made.

Releasing the space bar shows the area at normal size shaded with the selected takeoff pattern. The Precision Takeoff Tool can be activated or deactivated at any time while using one of the takeoff tools.

Settings for the Precision Takeoff Tool can be found in the Preferences dialog box.

Window Area

Notice that as you proceed with the takeoff, its area appears in the space to the right of Area in the Specifications dialog box.

The area takeoff is complete.

Resize and reposition the New Window screen so that you can see all of the drawing.

Now we'll look at the rest of the window information that you can specify from this screen. Use this option when you wish to change the default settings.

• Click on the Select Window Components button.

You will see an overview of all the components.

For each "layer" of the window -- Exterior shades /Glazing / Interior shades -- there is a list of characteristics from which you may choose.

  • Exterior Shades:
    • Type
    • Opacity
    • Fixed/operable
  • Windows:
    • Type
    • # of panes
    • Opacity of panes
  • Internal Shades:
    • Type
    • Reflectance


• Click on the cells to change the shades or windows.

Important! Before continuing, return to the original settings.

• Click on OK.

Remember : The New Window Specification reappears. If you had made changes, these would appear in the cells.

Two other specification windows can be opened to provide Energy Scheming with more details about your window design:

• Set Window Schedules

• Detailed Window Design

We will not explore these during this tour.

Note : For an explanation of these options, refer to Chapter 5, "Procedures," Elevation Specifications - Windows.

Tilt

The last piece of information to specify about this south elevation window is the tilt.

Note : Orientation is south because you previously specified that orientation in the drawing specification window.

You can change the tilt of the window relative to horizontal by clicking on one of the angle lines. The range of tilt values for elevations is 10 , 18 , 34 , 45 , 59 , and 90 (these correspond to 1/12, 4/12, 8/12, 12/12, 20/12, and a vertical pitch).

• Click on the vertical line to represent the vertical position of the window plane.

If you select a flat plane, you will see an alert box.

This means that you must take off a horizontal window as a skylight under the Plan Specifications, rather than Elevations.

Close the specification window by clicking in the close box in the top left corner.

A warning box will appear.

• Click on 'Continue with Short List' to continue.

You will return to the 4 Room House Takeoff screen.

You will see a new window specification on the screen named for the type of window that you have just specified.

Note: If you had chosen one of the other window types, this window specification would be named after that choice.

 

Rule-of-Thumb for Window Sizing

Now we will see how your window is performing according to a number of measures.

Select Window Sizer from the Rule-of-Thumb Menu (or 1R R).

Rule-of-Thumb Window Sizing Aid Dialog Box

In this screen you can see a series of bar graphs which show "Percent of Target Area Achieved" by four elements.

  • Solar Apertures
  • Cross-Ventilation inlets and outlets
  • Stack-Ventilation inlets and outlets
  • Daylight Glazing for each Daylight zone

The heavy black bars on the graph indicate the value for each type. The goal is to size the window so that as many of the four values as possible measure near the optimum of 100%.

Each bar graph displays up to 200% of the optimum window size for its category. When the amount exceeds 200%, a "+" symbol appears on the far right of the bar graph.

In this tour we will deal only with the Rule-of-Thumb that tells us about solar gain. Its value is displayed in black on the graph. The bar will show you how close you have come to optimum (100%) for solar heating with the amount of glazing that you have taken off so far.

Another Window Takeoff

As you can see by looking at the graph for solar gain, the first window on the south elevation was inadequate for solar heating this building.

This means that we should add more glazing. Even though we have not drawn any more windows, we can now takeoff more window area as if we had drawn it.

Re-open the Casement 1 specification window by double-clicking the Casement 1 icon (or double click the window takeoff).

Resize and move the Window Sizer screen and the Casement 1 Specification window so that the solar bar graph, the south elevation drawing, and the area figures are visible.

Using the tape measure, take off additional window area until the bar reaches about 100%.

Note : Takeoffs can be resized by dragging the handles at the corners with the arrow tool.

In this illustration the bar graph reads approximately 95%, very close to the optimum in terms of solar gain. The window area now shows 135, indicating that we have added 83 square feet of additional window area (135 52 = 83).

Important Point : When you design your own building, you will want to optimize this and other building elements by working with the other Rules of Thumb for ventilation and for daylight.

Close the Window sizer and specification by clicking on their close boxes.

 

Back to the Drawing Layer

Now that we've discovered how much glazing we need, we have finished doing the takeoffs for windows in this daylight zone.

• Click on the T-square icon behind the large tape measure icon at the top of the Takeoff palette to return to the Drawing layer.

Note : The takeoff pattern is still visible but the takeoff icons are no longer visible.

• Click on the rectangle tool in the drawing palette to draw a rectangle around the takeoff that did not have a corresponding window drawing.

Hiding Takeoffs

To see what the elevation looks like without the takeoffs:

• Click on Takeoffs from the View Menu.

You will see a list of elements.

Make sure that the windows box is deselected.

• Click on OK (or Press Return) to continue.

The south elevation takeoff shading is no longer visible.

The rectangle outline that you just drew is still visible.

 

Redesign the Window

Use the drawing tools to embellish this window (or move it or divide its area into several windows) so that it makes sense with the composition of your elevation.

Now you have seen how easy it is to evaluate the energy performance of one aspect of a building and how to redesign it so that its performance is improved, all without fussing over technical data.

 

Graphic Report

Before we finishing the tour we will look briefly at the graphic report for the entire building.

Pull down the View Menu

Choose Graphic Report

On the next screen you will see two floating palettes labeled Graph and Climate. (If you do not see these two screens, pull down the View menu and select Show Graphic Report Format Palette and Show Climate Palette ).

Next we will modify the graphic report format. We will change the display from Total Net Heat Flow to By Element Group and change the scale to 1000 BTU.

• Click and hold down the mouse on Total Net Heat Flow.

Drag the cursor until By Element Group is highlighted.

Next change the scale to read 1000 BTU.

Type 1000 over the default increment of 10,000 or

• Click on the up arrow until 1000 is displayed

 

Now we will instruct Energy Scheming to calculate.

• Click on the Calculation Button at the bottom left of the screen to start calculating.

Note : When the background of the calculation Button flashes from grey to white, the program is prompting you to click on the button to calculate the graphic report. The background will flash before the first report is run or when you've made changes.

By looking at the title bar you will see that the title changes to reflect the sequence of calculations that Energy Scheming performs before calculating Final Results.

The Final Results graph displays the performance of each element in the building for each of the days being calculated. Scroll the window down to see all the days.

Elements can be identified by referring to the legend in the Graph palette.

For further explanation of how to interpret the Graphic report, see Chapter 6.

 

Thermographics

You may have noticed the little black diamond icon to the left of the graph's zero line. This controls a thermo-graphic display of the building's takeoffs.

Resize and scroll the window so that you can see the drawing takeoffs underneath.

Make takeoffs visible by selecting Takeoffs from the View menu, and select All Drawings, and All Takeoffs.

From the View menu select Show Thermographics.

• Click and drag the diamond across the hours of the graph.

Notice the takeoffs changing colors as the diamond is dragged. The colors represent rates of heat flow (Btu/h sf) for each takeoff as opposed to the total gains and losses (Btu/h) for each element that the graphic report presents.

The pink to red colors in the center of the window reflect rate of solar heat gain through the window. The light to dark blue outline shows the rate of heat loss through conduction or infiltration.

Another method of viewing thermographics is from the Drawing Mode. From the View menu, select Drawing/Takeoff.

Drag the small black diamond to the left of each graph. Watch the colors change over the course of the day.

For more information on the thermographic display see Chapter 6.

 

Advisor

You've learned how your building is performing and seen how the window responds to the climate throughout the day. Wouldn't it be great if someone told you how to make your building be more energy efficient? Energy Scheming's Advisor does just that! The Advisor is an expert system that analyzes the building's performance and suggests ways to improve it.

• Click in the titlebar of the Drawing/Takeoff Window.

Go to the Advisor menu and select Turn Advisor On and select Turn Advice Balloons On.

Move the cursor over one of your window takeoffs.

The balloon that comes up tells you ways to fix your building. By doing any or all of these changes your building will perform better.

This advice may also be spoken or viewed in a list form.

Select Advice Window from the View menu.

A new window will appear.

• Click on the triangle next to the word "WINDOWS".

The list that appears suggests ways of improving the performance of your building by working on windows.

For more information on the Advisor see Chapter 6 of the Energy Scheming manual.

At this point, you might choose to create an input file for DOE 2 in order to do a more detailed energy analysis. You can find out more about doing this export in Chapter 5, Procedures.

To end this tour we will return to the Takeoff screen.

Choose Drawing/Takeoff from the View menu.

You will return to the Takeoff Screen.

 

Save the Building

The drawing, its data base, and the takeoffs you have measured can all be saved now on disk. At some later date you can return to this building and define more elements and request a complete annual energy evaluation.

For now:

  • Select Save Building File As from the File Menu.

Name the File -

  • Type in a name for the file in the text box at the bottom of the screen.

• Click on Save.

Conclusion of Tour

  • Select Quit from the File Menu.

You will return to the Desktop.

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About Energy Scheming - main page

Energy Scheming General Information
Energy Scheming & The Creative Process
Energy Scheming Conceptual Overview
Energy Scheming Technical Considerations

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