topic Re: Thickness of material as property (heat loss calculation) in Collaboration with other software

Thickness of material as property (heat loss calculation)

Anonymous — Sun, 25 Nov 2018 11:50:35 GMT

Hi there,

I am looking for an option to get as a property for the thickness of materials in Property manager.
It is possible in schedules, but not in properties. Or can't I find it in the list?
I thank you for each tips for this problem.

I can image as a solution this strategy:
Create a extension for "thickness of a wall" minus "thickness of this wall's insulation". But I don't get, how Archicad that this particular layer in the wall is a insulation.

I need it for the heat loos calculation using materials' properties. If you have other solution, please tell me it 🙂

Best wishes
Alex

Re: Thickness of material as property (heat loss calculation)

poco2013 — Sun, 25 Nov 2018 17:34:06 GMT

I don't know of any way to do as you suggest? Properties are restricted to a single element only and their available parameters only return a single value or record.

An alternate to consider would be to add a property to each wall type with which you could add the info - thickness, composite, position, etc. in manually, then "dig" that out in your expression. OR, you could embed that info in the description of your composite and knowing the position of that info, use that in your calcs.

The new Python feature, maybe next year or thereafter, may provide some relief, but Graphisoft is not that far thinking and this does not seem like something they would make available outside of the API.

Re: Thickness of material as property (heat loss calculation)

Anonymous — Sun, 25 Nov 2018 22:00:57 GMT

Thanks for your reply. I think it's a bit strange, that there is an option to add this option to schedule (which have almost all properties), but not in properties...

poco2013 wrote:
I don't know of any way to do as you suggest? Properties are restricted to a single element only and their available parameters only return a single value or record.

An alternate to consider would be to add a property to each wall type with which you could add the info - thickness, composite, position, etc. in manually, then "dig" that out in your expression. OR, you could embed that info in the description of your composite and knowing the position of that info, use that in your calcs.

The new Python feature, maybe next year or thereafter, may provide some relief, but Graphisoft is not that far thinking and this does not seem like something they would make available outside of the API.

Re: Thickness of material as property (heat loss calculation)

Anonymous — Wed, 28 Nov 2018 15:07:28 GMT

I remember that we tested it in beta versions and got an explanation for it but I can't remember where. As far as I remember there was setting wich classified whats insulation and whats not based on Building Material name. So theoretically if you use same naming convention as in AC templet it should do the trick.

The other way is to export schedule to excel and do calcs and put it back to AC Property. No coding needed.

Re: Thickness of material as property (heat loss calculation)

Steve Jepson — Wed, 28 Nov 2018 19:33:52 GMT

ash4ever wrote:
...
I need it for the heat loos calculation using materials' properties. If you have other solution, please tell me it 🙂

There are no doubt other solutions for (heat loss calculations) based on what you are ultimately trying to accomplish. If you could be more specific about that, I think you might get some really good suggestions.

For example, if what you are ultimately after are heat loss calculations for a building - for the sake of Energy Code compliance and Building Permit forms... you can make Interactive Schedules that will generate the data you need to fill out those forms ( ResCheck/ComCheck https://www.energycodes.gov/rescheck ) in the same order the the forms are filled out.
That is just one example.
What is it that you want to make heat loss calculations for ?

Re: Thickness of material as property (heat loss calculation)

Anonymous — Wed, 28 Nov 2018 21:49:52 GMT

Also, you can try Energy Evaluation in AC.

Energy Plus is usually standard solution if you are thinking of other solution. There is plenty of different implementations across various software. It's also free to use.