EcoDesigner PLEASE help.

[Anonymous]

Quick question when using EcoDesigner.

When I run it, it loads and does its thing, but I am unable to click on 'Start Evaluation'.

Does anyone know why? Or what settings need to be adjusted in order to be able to do an evaluation?

For the record, I am proficient in ArchiCAD, but have never used EcoDesigner yet. Thanks so much in advance!

[Anonymous]

Quick answer
ED cannot perform a calculation when there are:
-no elements
-no enclosed spaces ( I believe 4 walls, a floor and roof)
-no properties of those enclosing elements (thermal properties) given

FYI:
ArchiCAD/Help/Eco Designer
Advanced User Guide

[Anonymous]

Master wrote:
Quick answer
ED cannot perform a calculation when there are:
-no elements
-no enclosed spaces ( I believe 4 walls, a floor and roof)
-no properties of those enclosing elements (thermal properties) given

FYI:
ArchiCAD/Help/Eco Designer
Advanced User Guide

Thanks a ton this helped me get to the point of the button becoming active! I actually don't know how to give thermal properties.. where is this done? Attached is the error I keep receiving. Thanks again!!

[Karl Ottenstein]

This is all in the user manual AFAIK...

Click on the Structures tab, as shown in the screeenshot attached. Any undefined properties will have the yellow "!" warning triangle.

Click the "..." button for U-Value to define.

You'll then get to the U-value Calculator showing the skins for the selected element. Click the "..." button there to look up all of the cut fills in the project.

Having clicked on that, you can now see all of the Thermal Property Assignments for cut fills - many of which probably read as "0.00". At the end of the line, is another "..." button. Click it.

Now you're looking at the Material Catalog. Find the material that corresponds to the fill, select it, and click OK to copy its values back.

Etc.

I cannot say that I like this interface, but that's how it works. Define everything, and you can then do the analysis.

Cheers,
Karl

[Anonymous]

The thing about Ecodesigner is that it is supposed to be 'push-button' easy to use.
So I have to say that I felt pretty stupid that I couldn't get it to work initially.
Karl's reply is what you need to know (especially the user manual part 😉) ... but I had read the user manual too (although a little impatiently) and still couldn't get it to work.

So to share my very simple tutorial after solving it - two words - CUT FILLS

Make sure your elements are not set to something 'abstract' like 'Background Fill' (which my AC13 defaults to) - and give them something 'real' like 'Block Concrete' etc. There are many other reasons you should do this anyway, but if you do then Ecodesigner is REALLY easy to use. You can really push the button and go, without having to deal with customising U-values and the like.

[Karl Ottenstein]

amonle wrote:
So to share my very simple tutorial after solving it - two words - CUT FILLS

Make sure your elements are not set to something 'abstract' like 'Background Fill' (which my AC13 defaults to) - and give them something 'real' like 'Block Concrete' etc.

I'll second John's comment. I have tended to pick fills purely for presentation appearance - using 25%, 35%, 50% and 75% more than I care to admit. But, unique, named fills-per-material-type are essential for ED - and down the road for cost estimation/etc.

You can merely duplicate existing fills and give them new names. All AC/ED cares about is that the (cut) fill is a unique fill name/index - with no concern over the appearance.

It is unfortunate that ED is not "smarter" about the thicknesses of skins in order to use look-up tables to retrieve values dynamically. For example, you might have 1", 2" and 4" rigid insulation skins. You cannot have a single rigid insulation fill and satisfy all of those skins. You have to create copies of the fill for each thickness = U value.

This lack of "linkage" to the virtual model breaks the concept of BIM a bit, because you can obviously assign anything to anything in a very meaningless way: all has to be checked carefully.

Cheers,
Karl

[Anonymous]

Ah, ok ok. Amonle's comment definitely cleared it up in a simplistic form.. makes sense about the cut fills. And setting my fills to a % background was definitely the problem I was having. Like Karl said, a lot of my choosing of fills simply has to do with making sure materials and such are different for representational aspects. Thanks a ton guys.

On a similar note, has anyone used ED for LEED?

I am actually in the midst of design involving a LEED project.. one of the most important categories of LEED has to do with using a Energy Model program to generate calculation basically for proof of your energy savings.

Anyways, anyone ever used ED for anything like this?

[Anonymous]

About LEED - have a look at this post
It hasn't got very far yet but who knows. Of course there may be others

[Anonymous]

amonle wrote:
About LEED - have a look at this post
It hasn't got very far yet but who knows. Of course there may be others

Looks promising, thanks for the info! I'll keep an eye on it.

[Anonymous]

Karl wrote:
This is all in the user manual AFAIK...

Click on the Structures tab, as shown in the screeenshot attached. Any undefined properties will have the yellow "!" warning triangle.

Click the "..." button for U-Value to define.

You'll then get to the U-value Calculator showing the skins for the selected element. Click the "..." button there to look up all of the cut fills in the project.

Having clicked on that, you can now see all of the Thermal Property Assignments for cut fills - many of which probably read as "0.00". At the end of the line, is another "..." button. Click it.

Now you're looking at the Material Catalog. Find the material that corresponds to the fill, select it, and click OK to copy its values back.

Etc.

I cannot say that I like this interface, but that's how it works. Define everything, and you can then do the analysis.

Cheers,
Karl

This is great thanks for the info! For some reason when I get to the specific materials when I want to define it to one of the fills that is set at 0.00.. and I click ok.. it won't actually set it to it.

So basically when I get back to the first structures tab, the material I changes still reads with the yellow triangle "!". Any idea why it won't save it?