EPC Calculation Error due to Atrium rooflight?

Part L2 of the Building Regulations (2006 edition).
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ColinR
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EPC Calculation Error due to Atrium rooflight?

Post by ColinR »

Hi guys,

I've got an error coming up each time I try to run an EPC calculation. The error refers to "surface index out of range on rooms file -843". Suncast gives me no errors and usually that's a goos sign that everything is good!

I've tried the few tricks with the room navigator, reassigning shading and rooms etc and it doesn't help. However, what DOES work is when I delete a large circular rooflight at the top of my 4 storey atrium. The calculation runs fine without this but when I draw it in it won't run. I'm happy that I've found the issue but not sure why it's an issue???

Any thoughts?

Cheers,

C
ColinR
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Re: EPC Calculation Error due to Atrium rooflight?

Post by ColinR »

Update:

I tried it with an equivalent area, square rooflight and it runs no problem??

Very strange.
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PCully
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Re: EPC Calculation Error due to Atrium rooflight?

Post by PCully »

Have you checked the geometry? If there are intersection (or other problems) int he geometry then perhaps a complicated rooflight is exacerbating it and manifesting in the error you see there?

Surface index out of range means the geometry the simulation sees does not match what the shading file says is there (it's one of the validations performed during a simulation to ensure the geometry and shading file is robust and suitable for use)

Phil
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Adele
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Re: EPC Calculation Error due to Atrium rooflight?

Post by Adele »

Hi,
How did you solve your problem? (Hope you solved it?)
I have this message: surface index out of range on rooms file -244 when I try to run the simulation ( Suncast seemed to run perfectly BTW)...
Any help would be much appreciated :-)
Adele
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Complex Potential
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Re: EPC Calculation Error due to Atrium rooflight?

Post by Complex Potential »

I've seen this happen on a few occasions but always on models that were built in older versions of IES. My theory is that sometimes the number of rows listed within the .shd file inside the suncast folder can get out of sync when "upgrading" and some manual adjustment is needed. You can open it by dragging the file into a blank notepad screen and then comparing the listed rooms against what's in your model.

If it looks weird then you can try manually correcting it BUT BACK UP THE FILE FIRST.

Otherwise, I have seen a simple room re-order followed by a re-run of suncast solve many of these types of problems so it might be worth a shot.

If all else fails, email the model to tech support. They are normally quite good at tracking down bugs.

support@iesve.com

CP
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