When I generate the Space Type Report through the Openstudio plugin on sketchup, there is almost 1200sqft of extra space on a floor. Why?

asked 2017-07-27 10:22:49 -0500

Student
177 ●1 ●7

updated 2017-08-05 07:27:00 -0500

__AmirRoth__

4436 ●5 ●17 http://bleedinggreenna...

I did Extensions > OpenStudio User Scripts > Reports > Space Type Report. The area on building story 2 comes out to be 12000sqft and the area on building story 3 is 10000sqft. The geometry of building story 2 and 3 is identical. Why is the reported area so different?

Also, when running simulation on OpenStudio and energyPlus, the area reported is different for both by about 250sqft. How do openStudio and EnergyPlus calculate the floor area? Does this directly affect outputs such as site energy?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Comments

I had a similar issue in the past. The answer to this question pointed me in the right direction: https://unmethours.com/question/21445...

It was tedious to make the edits, though. You can check if you have a similar issue.

rsunnam ( 2017-07-27 10:36:08 -0500 )edit

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answered 2017-07-27 10:40:38 -0500

David Goldwasser

20295 ●94 ●14 http://www.openstudio.net/

Here are some possible causes for the area not being what you expected.

Some spaces may not be assigned to a thermal zone
Spaces may be in a zone but not part of the building area
Zones might have a multiplier on them
Multiple spaces stacked vertically that are part of the same zone may report differently with this script.
You may have a space not assigned to building story for story 2 or 3 that should be.

In current versions of OpenStudio there should be warnings if the Area reported in the EnergyPlus report doesn't match the area reported in the OpenStudio report, depending on how you are running the simulation that error may be harder to see.

Incorrect areas will certainly affect EUI since it is normalized by area. Depending on the cause of the difference, it could also impact plug loads that are normalized per area, which would effect overall consumption (even when not normalized per area)

As a note the Space Type Report user script is very old, and probably very basic. It is probably looking at the raw geometry area, and not looking at if a space is in a zone, if the zone has a multiplier, or if zone is included in the building floor area.