Thermal Modeling for Environmentally Sustainable Design

“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”, and the saying is also true for buildings. To model a building is to plan and refine its performance for the future. The Tas program is one of the software platforms used by engineers and building scientists to model how a building might typically behave in any [...]

Thermal Modeling of an Auckland House using SunREL

Using SunREL* to model a hypothetical house to see the effect of windows/glazing on solar gain, the amount of incoming solar energy into the house which leads to heating of the internal zones. To model a building you must specify all aspects of the building- its dimensions, the orientation of the walls, the positions of [...]

Insulation and Heating Grants

Here is a quick bit of research I did into the new NZ Government grants for home insulation and heating. Overview Gerry Brownlee says-  “Government grants of up to $1,800 will be available for houses built before 2000 that require ceiling and under floor insulation or a clean heating device, regardless of income,” “The programme will [...]

University of Otago Campus Sustainability Masterplan

Starting to help Dave Fullbrook with the development of the University of Otago Campus Sustainability Masterplan. This will serve as a a 20 year blueprint to guide the University towards sustainability. The goal at the end of this is to achieve a 30-40% increase in energy efficiency, a 50% increase in water conservation and reuse [...]

Thermal Modeling of Buildings

My introduction to eCubed Building Workshop was thermal modeling of the Albany Senior High School gymnasium (ASHS). Using architects plans of the gym and the standards set out in NZS4214:2002 I had to find thermal resistance (“R”) values for each of the building elements of the gym (walls, roofs, floors). I went very slowly at first as everything was [...]