Nursing home reference building

asked 2015-10-13 09:59:08 -0500

4675 ●9 ●17 http://bigladdersoftware.com/

We are looking for models of prototypical nursing homes (assisted living, residential care facilities, etc.). There are no such models in the DOE commercial reference buildings, so I'm reaching out to the community in case anyone has a model or model assumptions that they are willing to share. We are working in EnergyPlus, but models created in other tools would also be a helpful starting point.

Does anybody know of such examples, or even case studies that might provide a description of the assumptions?

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answered 2015-10-13 16:16:53 -0500

Joe Huang
2712 ●4 ●13

updated 2015-10-13 16:19:01 -0500

Nursing homes were one of the building types I considered in the GRI project back in 1990 (http://www.whiteboxtechnologies.com/d... ), but it was eliminated during the selection process due to its low cogeneration market potential. In the review of data sources in Chapter 8, there was mention of nursing homes in several studies:

Science Applications International Corp. 1984, "Characterization of commercial and multi-family residential cogeneration markets and applications" (has building characterizations and measured load shapes for a nursing home)
Chamberlain GARD 1990, "Simulation and analysis of integrated gas-fired desiccant dehumidification and mechanical and absorption cooling systems for commercial buildings" (internal report) (has DOE-2 prototype for a nursing home, which was probably taken from previous work by PNL for ASHRAE-90). I think I had that building file and had looked through it at one point. However, to find it now would take a lot of work and might not even be successful. You could check with Jason Glazer to see if he has it.

The other thought is that all these prototypical building files were not that well vetted or documented, so you might do just as well to build one up yourself, since a nursing home is similar to an apartment building in many ways.

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A nursing home is similar to an apartment building? I guess in terms of construction and maybe major equipment, but the use seems really different. Nursing homes are probably fully occupied all day and the occupant density is probably/sadly pretty high. There are probably a lot of televisions on. There is one large kitchen as opposed to individual kitchens. There is probably a decent sized night staff and some night-time activity, etc. Maybe I am off base, but I think of a nursing home as a cross between a hospital and an apartment building, not as an apartment building. FWIW.