RHVAC Load Calculation Software for ACCA Manual J

Product Description

RHVAC FEATURES

Quickly Calculates Peak Heating and Cooling Loads Determines Building Tonnage and Room CFM Requirements, and Runout Duct Sizes Calculates Hydronic Radiant Floor Tubing Length Required Follows ACCA Manual J, 8th Edition, RHVAC is approved by ACCA. Computes Room by Room, Zone, System & Building Calculates from Manually Entered Data or Directly from Floor Plans Created with Drawing Board Rooms and Zones Can Be Assigned to 15 Systems Allows 1000 Rooms Grouped into 10 Zones per System Using Drag and Drop Zoning Techniques Allows 10 Walls, 10 Windows, and 4 Roofs per Room Allows Custom Construction Material Descriptions Looks up HTM & U-Values or Lets You Specify Them Determines Adequate Exposure Diversity status Links to Florida's Engauge Compliance Program Links to DUCTSIZE, AUDIT, and Quick Quote

No Copy Protection! Displays Psychrometric Chart Equipment Selection From ARI and GAMA Databases Prints Exploded Color Pie Charts , Bar Graphs , and Custom Sales Proposals Allows Decimal Feet, Feet-Inches or Metric Length and Width Dimensions Allows Exterior Shading (Overhangs and Offsets) Provides Inputs for Summer & Winter Partition Temperature Differences

The Elite Software RHVAC Program quickly and accurately calculates peak heating and cooling loads for residential and small commercial buildings in accordance with the eighth edition of the ACCA Manual J. The Heat Transfer Multipliers (HTM values) for all the walls, windows, doors, and roofs listed in Manual J are stored and automatically looked up by the program as needed. Although HTM values are taken from Manual J directly, the user does have the option of entering his own U-Value for each wall, roof, or glass section so that a modified HTM value is used. Design weather data for over 1500 cities is built-in to the program. In addition, the user can revise the existing weather data and add additional weather data as desired. Zoning cfm adjustments are automatically handled by the program as needed. Other outstanding features include exterior glass shading, ventilation air, miscellaneous latent loads, default room data, automatic rotation of the entire building, hydronic heat calculations and much more. Besides calculating peak heating and cooling loads, RHVAC can also calculate the length of tubing needed for hydronic radiant floors and runout and main trunk duct sizes. Additionally, RHVAC creates sales proposals and selects hvac equipment Duct sizing options include all types of duct materials, height and width restrictions, velocity limits, and more. For equipment selection, RHVAC is provided with a database derived from ARI and GAMA of thousands of equipment models from over 80 hvac manufacturers. Standard air conditioners, heat pumps, furnaces, boilers, and ground source heat pumps are among the types of equipment RHVAC can select. The sales proposal feature of RHVAC prints key features of the proposed equipment and work to be performed. Also included are standard terms and conditions of the proposal.RHVAC shares data with Elite Software's AUDIT operating cost analysis program, DUCTSIZE, Quick Quote, and Drawing Board program. RHVAC can be used stand alone or in conjunction with any of these programs.

CALCULATION METHOD The RHVAC Program follows the exact methodology described in the Air Conditioning Contractors of America (ACCA) Manual J, Eighth Edition entitled "Residential Load Calculation". Elite Software is a technical software partner for ACCA; the RHVAC program is approved by ACCA.

The recently released 8th edition of Manual J is a significant expansion over the 7th edition. There are numerous changes, but the most noticeable is a much larger list of built-in floor, roof, wall, glass and door materials. The 7th edition was missing references to current popular materials such as structurally insulated panels, insulated concrete forms, logs, and much more. The 8th edition includes all these materials plus all common building materials with hundreds of variations. This writer's opinion is that the roof, wall, and glass loads tend to calculate slightly lower in MJ8 compared to calculations made with MJ7 and attempting to equalize all other factors.

Duct gains and losses are another area much changed in the 8th edition. Many more scenarios of duct system type, duct location, insulation values, temperatures, etc. are considered in the 8th edition. Generally speaking, duct gains and losses calculated using MJ8 procedures will be larger than what was calculated using MJ7 procedures.

MJ8 also introduced several new concepts including adequate exposure diversity (AED) , peak method, and averaging method. If an area of a building served by a single hvac system is deemed to have AED, that entire area is allowed to use the "average" method for calculating the cooling and heating btuh loads otherwise the "peak" method with correspondingly higher btuh loads must be used. Individual rooms most often must use the peak method, but in some circumstances qualify for the average method.

The method for determining whether AED exists or not can be quite tedious to perform. In fact, at the time of this writing (12-19-02), Elite's RHVAC program is the only computer program that can determine AED status. Most other programs require the user to make this determination on their own. Correctly assessing AED is very important for determining whether the peak or averaging methods of MJ8 may be used for a given building.

In summary, the new MJ8 hvac calculation procedures are the state of the art in hvac design. The MJ8 procedures provide higher accuracy than the MJ7 procedures, and perhaps even more importantly, they provide far greater flexibility in analyzing modern building construction materials and techniques.

PROGRAM INPUT The RHVAC program is a true Windows program complete with toolbars and hyperlinked help. All input data is checked at the time of entry so that no improper data can be entered. Two types of data are requested: general project data and specific room data.

The general project data includes the summer and winter design conditions, the outside air requirements, exterior shading and overhang data, the project name, the client name, and the designer name. The room input data includes specific information on the roof, walls, doors, and windows as well as general information on the room name, the number of occupants, and the number of appliances. Help is provided on all inputs. Data sheets are also provided for the easy organization of your information.

PROGRAM OUTPUT The RHVAC program provides numerous presentation quality reports including a title page, general project data, total building and system load summaries, room summary data grouped by zone, detailed room load reports, sales proposal, and numerous color pie charts and bar graphs.

Click Here to View Reports

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Our Windows software applications are compatible with all Windows Operating Systems.(Windows 95, 98, ME, NT 4.0, 2000, and XP) The minimum hardware requirements to run our application are the same as the minimum hardware requirements to run the operating system which the application is installed on click here for details. Additionally, 40 MB of hard disk space is required to install and run RHVAC. We also recomend 32MB of RAM for systems that will run this application with Elite's Drawing Board program.

General Project Data General project data includes five tabs of organized data and the project explorer shows a summary of the room data.





Drawing Board Window RHVAC is Drawing Board enabled. If you have Drawing Board installed on your computer, you can draw floor plans directly from within RHVAC. Below is a screen showing a floor plan created from within RHVAC.





Room Calculations Now you can optionally enter all the room data for a project by simply drawing the floor plan on the screen. All room data is automatically read from the drawing.



Update Information Users of existing versions of RHVAC can upgrade to the latest version of RHVAC, supporting ACCA Manual J 8th edition, for a substantial discount over full purchase price. If you have RHVAC version 6, you can still download for free the final release of RHVAC 6.08, which incorporates a number of useful improvements.

If you want to see the benefits of upgrading from RHVAC 6 to RHVAC 8, this demo can co-exist with existing versions of RHVAC 6. Click here to download the demo for RHVAC version 8.

A functional demo of Drawing Board is built into this version of RHVAC. The built-in demo version of Drawing Board allows you to draw and save floor plans of unlimited size, but HVAC calculations can only be made for three rooms of the floor plan.

Copyright ©2000 Elite Software Development, Inc., RHVAC Buyer's Guide

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Accuracy: The 8th edition of ACCA’s Manual J hvac load calc procedures known as MJ8 is more sophisticated than the 7th edition and has introduced many new material types and calculation procedures. Make sure the software you buy follows the MJ8 procedures and automatically checks for adequate exposure diversity and automatically uses the proper method (peak or averaging) as required for each particular application. If the user is required to make his own guess on what method to use, the final results can differ significantly. Additionally, look for software that can print results with intermediate load factors included instead of just printing the final results as a black box output. Elite Software’s RHVAC program meets all these requirements.

Ease of Use: All software vendors claim their software is very easy to use. And a good salesman can make any program look easy to use as he whizzes through everything. But the true test is can you make sense of it when you try running it by yourself. Always try running trial software yourself before making a purchase and check for the following:

Does the software use standard windows data entry techniques? For example, if you have to press the "home" key before you can edit text in an input field then that is a non-standard technique that must be learned. How good is the built-in help? Do you get both an input explanation and choices with one mouse click or do you have to double click and maybe press a function key to get more information, often with no choices available? How are area inputs handled? Many load calc programs require you to do the math yourself to calculate areas for roofs, wall, and glass. The best programs allow you to enter length and widths of these items so that areas are automatically calculated. Manual or Graphic Data Entry? The software should be just as easy to use in a manual input mode as it is when in a graphic input mode. For example, check whether a window can be assigned to the correct wall easily when in the manual input mode. Quick pick of recently selected items? Manual J provides hundreds of input selections. Software that remembers your most recent selection and places it at the top of the list for the next use is easier to use than software that forces complete reselection. Built-in room names? Much of the typing required in most load calc programs is for the room names. The best software provides a quick pick list of all common room names so as to minimize the typing required. My own custom materials? Does the software let you create your own custom glass, wall, roof, floor and door materials? Does it allow you to create your own material codes with your own descriptions that show up on the reports? How about favorite materials? Can you create a list of your most often used "Favorite" materials for easy selection, or do you have dig through long lists in order to reselect the ones you use frequently? Directly type in material codes? Since you will naturally memorize the ones you will be using most often, you should be able to type in a material code for any floor, roof, wall, glass or door instead of being forced to go to the popup dialog. Built-in room names? Much of the typing required in most load calc programs is for the room names. The best software provides a quick pick list of all common room names so as to minimize the typing required. Important data visible? Many load components in a room such as roofs, walls, and glass have a number of key aspects about each component such as U-factor, SHGC, etc. Software that displays more of this information without requiring constant clicks and viewing numerous pop-up windows will be faster and easier to review and check. Save reminder? It’s no fun retyping lost data you forgot to save. The best software provides a pop-up save reminder that can be set for any time interval or turned completely off if desired.

Copy Protection: Are their limits on how many computers the software can be installed on? Do you have to contend with copy protection schemes to install the software on multiple computers? There are No Copy Protection Hassles with Elite Software programs. Software vendors that use copy protection typically do not tell you about their copy protection scheme until after you have bought the software. Be sure to ask about copy protection before purchasing software!

Graphic Input Options: Good load calc software provides an easy manual data entry system with an optional graphic data entry system. The optional graphic data entry system should work with both commercial and residential calc programs.

Commercial Options: Manual J is intended only for detached residential structures, but many contractors often choose to apply Manual J to light commercial buildings. If you choose to do this, software that offers load inputs beyond standard Manual J can be very helpful. An entry for watts of lighting is an example of such an input. Other inputs needed for commercial projects include sensible and latent equipment loads and the ability for simultaneous ventilation and infiltration loads.

Multi Functions: The data entry and results from an hvac load calculation offers opportunities to do more than just calculate peak heating and cooling loads. Look for maximum value by choosing a load calc program that can also select equipment, size ducts, and print sales proposals. Florida residents should also look for a free link to the Florida Engauge program.

Advanced Features: Look for more value in Manual J software by checking for these advanced features.

Loads at Four Levels: The best software calculates at four levels in one run: rooms, zones, systems, and total building. Explorer Tree: This lets you do drag and drop zoning and manipulate the overall organization of a project in a graphic format. Project Links: You should be able to cut, copy, and paste room data within a project and between other projects. Program Links: Data should be transferrable to duct sizing, energy analysis and quoting programs Report Customization: Color selection and fonts should be adjustable for all reports. Save Reports: Reports should be savable as a file so that they can be emailed for example. Global Material Change: This lets you change a material type for all rooms with just one entry. Rotate and Flip Plan: You should be able to rotate and "flip" orientations for any range of rooms in the project. Calculation Method Selection: The determination of whether your project should use Manual J's Average or Peak method for the room loads and the block load should be made for you automatically. Adequate Exposure Diversity: A graphic report should be provided that shows your project's hourly glass load and whether or not it meets Manual J's criteria for having Adequate Exposure Diversity (AED).