Create a context in HB v 1.1.0 for energy simulation

grasshopper honeybee-legacy
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#1

Hi all,

first, thank you LB team for creating such a beautiful plugin and for all the help and tutorials you provided so far!

I use Honeybee V.1.1.0 and I would like to create an energy model of a house with different typologies. The idea is to compare the energy performance of this house between different typologies: free-standing house, corner house, house in a row. These different typologies will have different performances based on the amount of façade which will be directly facing the exterior.

In former tutorials I saw that you have used the component “Honeybee EP Context Surfaces” (linked to “shades” of the HB model component) in order to add a context. I tried to do so, but the versions of HB don’t match and I cannot find a v1.1.0 of the context component. The component returns the error “1. Solution exception:Expected Shade. Got <type ‘Brep’>.”

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Is there a new component I should use to convert these Breps in v 1.1.0?

Thank you!

#2

Yes, there is. Look for HB_Shade in the Honeybee tag.
-A.

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#3

thank you for pointing me the correct component. I ran two different simulations:

typo 1) with the house as a corner building (next building is 5 meters away)

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typo 2) with the house as a building in a row (the buildings touch each other)

The results show that typo 1 is consuming less energy for space heating than typo 2. This should be the other way around since typo 2 should have less heat losses (only 2 facades are directly linked to the exterior).

Here my questions:

  1. Does the component HB shade only takes into account the shadings (so the solar gain is lower when we have typo 2)?
  2. Do I need to set “attached” to TRUE, for the two buildings that are directly connected to my house in order to lower my heat losses through the joint facades?
#4

Not sure. Not sure it is the intention of the component regarding neighboring buildings.
What i would do is to set the touching walls as adiabatic.
-A.

#5

In that case, would it make more sense to run a simulation for both the house and the “touching buildings” together and then look at the results for the rooms of my house only?

#6

No. I wrote it wrong above. The adiabatic (boundary condition) walls belong to the house you want to simulate. The neighbors are just context.
-A.