Is it possible to combine plenum with room below?

asked 2026-07-22 13:53:25 -0500

updated 2026-07-23 09:01:27 -0500

14480 ●93 ●25 http://bigladdersoftware.com/

I want to model an air conditioned room without having a plenum. The issue is the room volume is smaller than the target volume, and it is because the plenum is taking up the space that is supposed to be the room volume that is air conditioned. I want to have one zone and it needs to be the full room volume. Every time I get a model from Asset Score it comes with a plenum, so the volume of the building I calculate is not what is in the Energy Plus reports as conditioned air. I currently do not have access to floorspace or SketchUp.

Is there a way to remove the plenum without erasing the room volume that it contains? Is having a plenum required for every model?

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answered 2026-07-23 06:10:44 -0500

Denis Bourgeois
4033 ●154 ●9 https://www.rd2.ca

Not an answer - too many characters in my initial comment.

Not an Asset Score user, so can't help you on that end - other UMH users would undoubtedly offer better advice. In a nutshell, you're downloading an Asset Score-generated .osm file, and plenums have been added - correct? Are these plenums added as AirLoopHVAC objects? If so, it becomes a more challenging operation (e.g. editing/removing nodes by hand), than if plenums were simply modelled as dead air spaces. Hard to guess without the .osm file ... can you share (Google Drive)?

There are UMH posts on merging OSM spaces (here, here), yet they involve using SketchUp.

A suggestion: Rather than seeking to merge plenum spaces with the occupied rooms they serve below, why not post-process EnergyPlus-reported outputs accordingly (e.g. script adding EnergyPlus-reported plenum air volumes to conditioned space air volumes)? Less messy, less risky. Of course, this depends on what objectives/metrics/targets you're after ...

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Yes the Asset Score-generated .osm file adds plenums. I can't figure out if it's added as AirLoopHVAC objects, but I may have missed it because I have only been using the program for one month and I am still learning. I like your idea with using a script to add the plenum air volume to the air conditioned space volume. Thank you for your help!

Student831 ( 2026-08-05 21:22:57 -0500 )edit

FYI: "I can't figure out if it's added as AirLoopHVAC objects" ...

Open the generated OSM file with any text editor (e.g. Notepad++, Pulsar Edit) and search for instances of AirLoopHVACReturnPlenum. Otherwise, simply search for "plenum".

Denis Bourgeois ( 2026-08-06 07:01:59 -0500 )edit

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answered 2026-08-05 21:19:14 -0500

Student831
11 ●1

Ultimately the quick fix was figuring out how to use Floorspace. Floorspace doesn't show as an option when importing an Asset Score model, so I created a brand new model. Then I used the same dimensions to create the building space. Doing it this way removed the plenum and I imported the library from the asset score mode so I could still make the model I wanted.

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Is it possible to combine plenum with room below?

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Is it possible to combine plenum with room below?