Energy Models Closer to Your Drawings, and a Feedback Button

Energy models built from your drawings keep more of the rooms they detect, place each floor at its printed level, and check the drawing scale against your gross floor area. When the scale needs a look, you review it in the Energy Model editor, then confirm it and start the final simulation. You can also send us feedback from anywhere in the app.

New

• Send feedback from anywhere. Use the Feedback button in the app, or the feedback links on credit results, the analysis summary and error messages. You can attach a screenshot after previewing it. Only the VERTIQ team can see it, and screenshots are deleted after 180 days. Feedback on a credit result points to the exact calculation you saw.
• Drawing scale checks. A drawing scale is confirmed automatically when a sheet has the same scale and sheet size as a validated sheet in the same set, or when the modeled floor area is within 10% of your gross floor area. Drawings that look printed at half size are flagged with a suggested scale. VERTIQ never changes a scale on its own.
• Reviewing the drawing scale. When the scale needs review, the analysis summary and the Energy Model editor show each sheet's scale, the floor area check and any suggested scale. Review the scale in the Energy Model editor, then confirm it and start the final simulation.
• Floors from the drawings. Floors take their names (B1, L1, L2) and printed floor-to-floor heights from the drawings, basements sit below grade, and the floor panel shows each floor's elevation.
• More review items. Estimated window sizes, overlapping room outlines, level elevations that disagree with floor heights, merged room labels and rooms the mechanical drawings leave out of an HVAC zone appear in the Review Queue.
• Window schedules in the Model Input report. The report lists each window mark, the size applied, the schedule row it came from and the size first detected.

Improved

• Provisional simulations. When a drawing scale cannot be confirmed, the energy model runs a provisional simulation instead of failing. Provisional results carry that notice into evidence, reports and submission approvals, and approving one records your acknowledgment.
• Clearer energy results. Energy panels and run reports use the same floor area and unmet-hours summary and say which model it comes from. A run failure shows the first engine error message.
• Faster submission review. Submission readiness and approval open much faster.
• Code-minimum equipment from your 90.1 edition. Supported equipment (heat pumps, PTHP and PTAC units, boilers, furnaces and unit heaters) uses the minimum efficiencies of your project's ASHRAE 90.1 edition when no design efficiency is provided. Design efficiencies you enter are kept.
• Windows where you drew them. Energy runs place each drawn window on its own wall at its drawn position, and models built from uploaded drawings use the drawing's windows instead of a default window-to-wall ratio.
• The model you chose. An analysis uses the published model you selected and tells you when a newer candidate is waiting. The completion dialog names the model it used.
• Repeatable results. Running the same model again with the same inputs and settings gives the same energy, daylight and passive survivability results.
• Steadier under load. Signing in and loading pages are more reliable while several analyses and report downloads run at once.

Fixed

• Improved retention of detected corridors, storage rooms and restrooms in models built from drawings.
• HVAC systems read from mechanical drawings show in the HVAC tab as "Type not set" and are no longer removed when you add another system. Rooms without an HVAC system each get their own zone instead of one zone across several floors.
• Saving in the Energy Model editor no longer fails on projects whose drawing scale was corrected earlier, and Analyze All no longer fails after a simulation run from the editor.
• A basement stored as the first level can be deleted, and deleting a floor deletes its rooms after telling you how many.
• Uploading an energy model while another simulation runs says the engine is busy instead of showing an error page.
• The analysis summary no longer says the energy simulation ran when it did not finish, and it counts the drawings read for the energy model.
• Power outage (passive survivability) simulations no longer leave lighting and equipment on during the outage.
• Energy results, run reports and evidence say when zones are not fully enclosed and need review.
• Cancelling an energy or daylight run stops it, and annual daylight results are no longer lost.
• People removed from a project can no longer see that project's analysis jobs.
• Deleting your account no longer keeps a copy of your email address, name or profile picture.

Models built before this release show the new floors, rooms and review items after the next analysis. Your first analysis after this update reads drawings again and may run the energy simulation again once. Because equipment efficiencies and window placement changed, energy results can differ from earlier runs of the same model.