Hi,
I need to study the insulation of a 2 story house built in early the 1970s in Western Europe which has a cubic shape of 10m x 15m x 6m (height).
I am focusing on the cantilevered balcony which is an extension of the intermediate floor (1st floor) made of approximately 30 cm concrete slab. The balcony is 1m50 wide and 14 m long. So it represents a pretty good fin!
I already tried eQuest' "slab penetrates walls" option within DD Wizard mode (as advised somewhere on the forum) but the results are only qualitative since the simulated slab does not extend onto the balcony. So I guess the simulated heating losses in winter due to this "fin-balcony" will be far less than the actual losses.
I also tried BeOpt but there was no way to add a balcony or I couldn't find it. Maybe as a workaround I could define a intermediate floor only made of a 2 foot slab (it is not possible to input a value less than 2 feet which is ~60cm), although the balcony would be approximately twice as thick as the actual balcony. By the way will the simulated losses also be twice as the actual ones?
Eventually I tried OpenStudio and started to draw the 3D model of the house with balcony under Sketchup using OpenStudio plugin. However as soon as I clicked on "project loose geometry" the exterior balcony disappeared and only the interior slab up to the walls remained as if the balcony was cut off.
Consequently now I wonder if it is even possible to model a cantilevered balcony, and if so which (free) simulation software I should use and how I should model the cantilevered balcony ?
Any help appreciated,
