Real, Actual & Notional buildings

[Terence]

As I wrote in my forum post on setting up thermal templates under "Good Practice" it is very important that users create their own thermal templates for their real building. In the following video one of our consultants talk about the difference between the three different buildings and why it is very important that users distinguish the difference between the Real building used in ApacheSim and the Actual Building used in VE Compliance view.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEqrnT8YuZQ#t=02m38s

• The real building is the building that you see in Apache View. It is the building as designed, and with the occupancy and plant operation conditions expected to apply in reality, rather than the standard conditions stipulated for Part L2 compliance. In Apache View it forms the basis for the analysis of heating and cooling loads and simulations.

• The actual building is the building as designed, but subject to standard patterns of occupancy and plant operation for Part L2 (2010), as defined in NCM. The actual building is the building displayed by default in <VE> Compliance. It is identical to the real building in all respects except occupancy (including associated internal gains and minimum ventilation rates) and plant operation conditions, which are given standard settings in <VE> Compliance as a function of the attributes ‘building type’ and ‘room activity’. Aspects of the actual building that are shared with the real building may be edited either Apache View or <VE> Compliance.

• The notional building is a version of the actual building that is modified to conform to a clearly defined set of standards relating to glazing area, constructions and system characteristics. Its purpose is to provide a benchmark or target against which to measure the performance of the actual building. The notional building is subject to the same occupancy and plant operation patterns as the actual building. It can be viewed in <VE> Compliance by switching the Current Model from Actual to Notional. It is created automatically from the actual building, and may not be edited.

[Complex Potential]

If I had a quid for every time I've had to explain that...