Drawing Staircases In ModelIT

[baljay]

What is the best technique for handling staircases in ModelIT? I have a 3 storey building with staircases at either end linking all three floors and including a landing at each level. Is there a method for drawing them or an alternative to handling these areas. The areas will be covered under the air conditioning system so will need to account for loads in Apache.

[vajindarladdad]

Dear Baljay,
There is no specific method/tool for drawing staircases in ModelIT , but there is a workaround.

You can modelled it as one single space that runs vertically through the building. For easy you may wish to model the space in each floor and then connect the spaces without partitions at the end but you could also simply change the space height and draw the shaft in one go.

Baljay , if you have not attended any training for ModelIT , I would stongly recommend you to go for it , I am sure you will find it very beneficial.

IES Training Program:
http://www.iesve.eu/Training-Calendar/

[baljay]

Thanks for that advice. We are currently learning IES in college but tutor can be very vague so I'll probably try some training with IES later in the year.

[JosephG]

I don't think you need training on IES to figure out what to do with stairs, honestly. You just need to figure out just what you hope to get from the simulation and find a reasonable approximation for it. I suppose you intend to calculate heating / cooling loads? I would simply model it as three identical stacked rooms, with the floor at the same position as the rest of the building, and put a hole in the middle of roughly 10% of the total room area. That way you account for the thermal mass of the floor, account for buoyancy flows between floors should the temperature not be the same, and especially if it has windows the solar gains will go to the location where they belong. It can't account for the horizontal airflows between one stair and the next, but I think it's close enough.

I definitely would not connect all three, as the conduction from adjacent rooms and external gains may not be uniform.