Infiltration - Why is this so hard?

[ChrisBriley-ID]

A big part about energy efficiency is air sealing.  How do I control these inputs?

There should be a place where I specify airleakage, (estimated or actual) as either Natural air changes per hour or Airchanges per hour at 50 pascals.  Where i do I do this?

I should be able to specify that the building has mechanical fresh air ventilation via an ERV or HRV and I should be able to input its efficiency by percentage.  Where do i do this?

At this point, I'm of the opinion that Revit has a LONG way to go to become a useful energy modeling tool.  Maybe at a conceptual level, it works for status quo type buildings.  (You can generate some nice looking charts with it)

It has all of this data at its fingertips, yet the user interface is so conveluted with critical components kept at arms length from the user (air infiltration, glazing values, mechanical air exchange efficiency, custom SEER values, custom Boiler efficiencies, ets.) it just be comes useless.  The frustrating thing is that its so close!!!! All this geometric data is RIGHT THERE ready to be used, but I can't tell it what values to assign to that geometric data (like windows)  OR if I can, Autodesk does a great job of keeping it hidden so that even after weeks of looking for it, I still cant find it.

You're putting all this R&D into displaying the Data, (solon) but the data is crap if I can't control the inputs.  

[Mohammad_Asl]

Hi Chris,

Again sorry to hear that you are having issues with the tool. As you know the Energy Analysis component of Revit (Green Building Studio) was originally conceived as a conceptual tool. We are in the process of integrating the necessary interface for more detailed analyses, such as custom HVAC efficiencies. Your comments and feedback will help us to do this process quicker.

Currently the only way to to change infiltration is to use Solon runsets—you can choose from a pre-existing set of dropdown options. Then you add the runset that you create to the dashboard that is assigned to Revit, and run the model again, the runset will show up in Results and Compare Solon tab which only returns results as costs. You can go back to GBS alternative runs and see more details on the run with the desired infiltration that you have created.

Moreover the Energy Cost Range charts come with some automatically generated infiltration values for any model that you submit. You might find the run that is the closest to your desired infiltration value there as well.

 

Here to help if additional clarification is needed, otherwise please accept as a solution so that others can benefit from this information.

[Anonymous]

is this still available as a legacy product?

[marjoriestein]

 Insight has replaced Solon, and will be integrating more Solon features over time.

For specifying more detailed inputs for more in-depth analysis you can export the DOE2 .inp file, the EnergyPlus .idf file, and the gbXML files out of Insight and use those other tools for analysis.

[swaddell]

I agree with the OP-- I want to have direct control of things like infiltration. How do I show a client whose building has an infiltration rate of 10+ ACH that it will pay to airseal? The default stops at 2.0 ACH!