Zone Load and Sizing Results

loadmodeling.tool Zone results, sizing, and reports. Zone Equipment and Terminal Unit Results

Patrick Chopson avatar
Written by Patrick Chopson
Updated over a week ago

Heating and cooling loads are the fundamental basis for the design of the mechanical systems within a building. The calculations inform the sizing of diffusers, ductwork, pipework, air handling units, heat pumps, chillers, fans and more.

Zone results are the primary calculations preformed by the platform. All models run will always produce zone results. Additional results such as Rooms or Air Systems are options and can be run when required.

Requirements for Zone Results

Zones can be created on the Project Data Editor. Defining Zones allows engineers to group rooms to determine the coincident load of the group. This is commonly used to size equipment such as VAV Boxes or other terminal equipment that will serve multiple rooms on a single thermostat.

There are no minimum requirements for creating Zones on the platform. Instead, Zones will be automatically created if they do not exist within a project. This automated workflow speeds up early stage design.

Once a model is run either with Zones defined or using the auto-assignment, results will be available on the Results page.

Zone-by-Zone Load Results

The Zone Results are divided into 3 sections - Load Results Zone List, Zone Load Results and Detailed Zone Results. When you select a zone from the Zone List you will see the results break-down of each zone under Load Results such as area, occupancy, system, airflow, zone checks, and peak load details. Selecting either the Cooling or Heating Peak will open the Detailed Load Results panel.

Detailed Load Results (online view)

Under the Detailed Load Results, you can see the breakdown of zone-by-zone Cooling Peak Load and Heating Peak Load. You can see the envelope gains and losses in Btu/h or % for your external loads such as Exterior Walls, Glazing, Roofs, Floors, etc. You will also be able to see the internal gains for the Interiors Walls and Floors and loads. Values show in the graph are breakdowns of the Sensible Loads. Latent Loads are reported in the table below. This information will help you minimize unwanted heat gain in summer and heat loss during winter.

Local System Results

Local Systems produce only Zone results. On the Results Page each Zone will be shown in the Load Results Zones Table. Selecting any of these will show the zone sizing results, along with the Zone component sizing for all equipment created as part of that system, or Zone Equipment Results. There will be no Air System results as there are no centralized components that are sized for Local Systems.

Spreadsheet Export Example

You can also download these results as a spreadsheet. Click on the Export Spreadsheet button under Load Results Zones header. The Spreadsheet will have 2 sheets - Zone Results Summary and Zone Results All. The Zone Results Summary sheet will show the sensible, latent and total cooling and heating loads. The Zone Results All sheet will show more detailed information such as safety factor, air-flow rates, infiltration, etc. The latent loads are broken down in the spreadsheet are additional results. This is a bulk export of the results and provides are variables known about each zone.

Zone Check Summary Report

The results can be downloaded to a standard pdf Zone Check Summary Report. This report is helpful for reviews, records or other design tasks such as sizing diffusers and VAV within a space. Simply click the Export PDF Report button to review a preview of the report and download. The report includes the peak heating and cooling loads, heat gain/losses breakdowns, zone airflow rates and checks.

The order of these reports is responsive to the Zone list on the Interface.

Result Variable Definitions

Full descriptions of each result variable is available here.

Using the Results

  • The heating and cooling load calculations allows for sizing of diffusers, ductwork, pipework, air handling units, heat pumps, chillers, fans and more.

  • The web interface allows for easy sharing and reviewing of these results so that errors can be spotted and corrected with ease.

  • The envelope gains and losses will help you make better design decisions to minimize unwanted heat gain in summer and heat loss during winter.

  • The spreadsheet export makes connecting the results to other workflows such as BIM or existing Excel Design Files your firm may be using.

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