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I have my zone programs set as MidriseApartment for my model, however I want to manually adjust the specs for this type of zone program. I can't seem to find where that is possible within the idf editor. I'm assuming there's a preset thermostat temperature that governs the heating and cooling loads. I would like to give that desired thermostat temperature a range as opposed to a specific value if that's at all possible.

The underlying issue is that my heating and cooling loads for a simulated year are extremely high and I'm trying to find a way to drastically reduce them.

Hello, I am fairly new to EnergyPlus so forgive my novice questions.

To give some background: I recently modeled a 1 story single family residential home, with about a 100 sqm footprint. It's an extremely open floor plan with the majority of the interior walls designated as Air Walls. I assigned it 14 zones, 3 "SmallHotel::Corridor" and 11 "MidriseApartment::Apartment" zones. I used these zones because it was the closest I could find to single family residential type zones (correct me if I'm wrong and should be using different zone programs). The building has a long-bar like rectangular plan with the south facade completely glazed and the north facade only minimally glazed (New York epw file).

After running a simulation I get (what I believe to be) an extremely high total energy ouput of 46208kwh annually. This is totaled from energy output of every zone.

So my question is: I know 14 zones is probably a lot for that small of square footage but it's necessary to get the geometry I want. I also know that the "MidriseApartment::Apartment" loads and schedules is being applied to each of those zones which may be giving it an abnormally high numbers because of "overlapped/multiplied" load and schedule data? (That's just my guess, correct me if I'm wrong.) So what is a quick and appropriate way to reduce these loads besides just manually guessing at possible load and schedule data? Or am I just crazy and the energy output I'm getting is how it should be?

Boils down to: What is a typical total energy output for a residential space of that size and what are some tips and tricks to get the zones and schedules of a single family residential simulation accurate?

(Also to note that I'm completely confident in my materials and constructions and don't believe that to be a factor)

Thanks in advance!

• Aaron