External Walls and Energy Analysis

[Anonymous]

One of my colleages is trying to do some heating and cooling analysis on an architectural model that we recieved from an architect. The thing is that the external walls have been created using (I think) In-Place Mass so they arent made up of different materials with thermal properties, it is merely an extrusion. This will have an affect on the energy analysis, i was wondering if i would have to re-draw these walls with the correct structure from scratch or is there another way around it? Maybe by applying a U value parameter to the external wall which can be used in the energy analysis.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

[whitbrs]

If you think, or know, that the construction methods used for the walls is incorrect, there is no need to remodel.

When running analysis, you have the option to override the analytical constructions of Walls, Roofs, Slabs etc as shown in the image below.

This is accessed from Energy Settings on the Analyse tab, or from within Heating and Cooling Loads

HTH

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply so soon. Do you know if you can add more options to those on the drop down menu for walls, floors etc or can you only choose the ones already created.

Also, by checking the tick box it means that those thermal properties will be used and unchecked means it will use whatever the construction type is in the model, correct?

Thanks for the help.

[whitbrs]

Although the information from the dropdowns is contained in "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Revit 2015\en-US\Constructions.xml", I would recommend against editing.

Unchecking the box means that yes, Revit will use the construction method of the wall, etc.

However, if you were to take a look at any object in Revit, it's properties may not be adequately defined, some materials may not have the correct thernal properties etc. Using this override gives you the ability to refine your results based on experience rather than accepting the architectural defaults which may be inaccurate due to the design being at a particular stage. And, if you have in-place families in the Architecture, I'd suggest quite strongly that you use the overrides rather than the modelled information.