Question-and-Answer Resource for the Building Energy Modeling Community
 | 1 | initial version |
Some of the zoning discussion in Getting Started was written back when graphical tools to draw the building envelope were not available or were rudimentary (this document is schedules for a rewrite soon). In that example, even the detailed zoning model has single-zone HVAC systems. For a 10-story building, assuming a rectangular footprint, a commonly used current approach is five zones per floor - four perimeter zone for each facade direction and one core zone. Other considerations that would prompt additional zones would be areas with significantly different thermostat setpoints, different schedules, or different internal gain densities. For a highly-glazed 10-story building I would not expect a single-zone model to give a good result, or even a 1-zone-per-floor model. For comparisons like this, always check the "thermostat setpoint not met" results in the ABUPS report to be sure that each model has controlled the zone space temperatures as specified.
There are many general building energy modeling resources available, including two books published or endorsed by IBSPA that have far better information about accepted modeling practice.
