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How to introduce heat recovery in DesignBuilder Heating Design

asked Aug 21

AadriaanW's avatar

updated Aug 21

I want to compare the Heating Design to our local Dutch calculation method (ISSO 51: Warmteverliesberekening). I see a big difference, a factor of 2,7, between the 2 results. My manual ISSO calculations are way lower than the output from DB. I am trying to figure out where this difference comes from and I noticed that the newer dialog does not include the option for excluding natural/mechanical ventilation and nothing about heat recovery. I can include this in the ISSO calculation however.

My question is: Is it possible to tweak the ventilation / heat recovery settings in the DB Heating Design? If not, it seems to me it is not as useful for our calculations, since the difference is too big and not considered accurate by us.

I have watched the DB tutorial from 2013 which goes through the process but the interface has since changed on this issue. I also see almost no impact of tweaking the HVAC settings, turning Heat Recovery on and off doesnt seem to do anything.

For reference, the project I am simulating is a large tower with small apartments, high insulation values (think PassivHouse) and we get a heating requirement of around 4,8kW for such an apartment, whereas our ISSO calculations show around 1,8kW which is considered to be a realistic value for such an apartment.

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answered Aug 21

Greg Estep's avatar

I use design builder for heating and cooling design loads all the time. Yes, you can include heat recovery for both heating and cooling design.
This is done on the HVAC tab. At building level:

Go to the HVAC tab. Turn on mech vent, apply a schedule, turn on heat recovery, and apply the effectiveness. Then under the heating tab, expand sizing zone equipment, set mech vent load to 1-met by zone equipment. Ensure to uncheck "exclude heat recovery from zone heating sizing".

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Thank you, now I remembered where all the relevant details for Heating Design were. My output comes much closer to my other calculation method so its more believable.

AadriaanW's avatar AadriaanW  ( Aug 26 )

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Asked: Aug 21

Seen: 400 times

Last updated: Aug 26 '24