Chief Architect is able to export information about your model into ResCheck to
determine whether the model complies with the number of energy codes.
In this video we're going to go through the information you can export and and
some of the settings that you can adjust.
We're going to start out with the direction that the house is facing and which
side is the front,
which will tell ResCheck information about the orientation of walls, doors,
and windows in the model.
To do this we're going to go up to our North Pointer tool,
which is available under our CAD tools and then going down to line,
and then selecting North Pointer,
and then just clicking and dragging which direction is north.
The second piece of information we can export is specific information about the
project's designer and client. We can add this by going to tools,
project information,
and here we have designer information and client information.
If we click on designer information,
we can then add contact information about the designer.
Similarly, we can add information about our client.
The third piece of data we can export to ResCheck is information about our walls
in the model, starting with the gross area. When we export the model,
Chief will automatically calculate the gross area of each individual wall and
automatically include it in the ResCheck import so there's nothing we need to do
here for our preparing our model other than verifying the dimensions of your
walls and the heights of the model are set to your liking. Next,
we can specify the wall assembly type, the cavity R-value,
and our continuous R-value.
If I click on this wall on the right hand side and go down to open the wall
specification,
here we have a lot of different panels for how we can control this wall.
The panel that we want to focus on is going to be our wall types,
where you can see that we have a siding 6 insulated wall type that I've created.
If we click on define,
we can see the wall type that we're using on that wall on the right hand side,
create new wall types, copy this wall type, rename it or delete it.
Additionally, you can see all the individual layers that make up this wall,
starting with the material that we're using, the thickness of that material,
and the fill style within our plan.
You'll notice that this wall has a rigid insulation layer that's three quarters
of an inch thick with a blue fill,
and we also have a first stud layer with a gray fill that is checked to be
insulated.
Down below here we can see the energy information that will export to ResCheck,
starting with the wall type, which we currently have specified as framed,
but you can change that to be solid concrete, structurally insulated panels,
insulated concrete forms or another wall type.
We can see our cavity R-value that we've specified here and our continuous
R-value for our rigid insulation layer.
Once you've entered in this information according to your specs,
you can go and press okay to accept any changes that you've made.
And then one other piece of information that you can specify is your label.
If we go down to the labels panel,
you can either have an automatic label or specify manual label,
and I have this wall on the right hand side set to have a manually specified
label for the purpose of this video.
So it's easy to identify which wall is which when we import it into ResCheck
[inaudible] I'm going to go ahead and cancel out of our wall specification.
And then one final note about walls is that Chief will export walls forming our
thermal envelope surrounding our conditioned spaces.
The fourth piece of information we can specify energy information for is our
doors. When we export the model,
Chief will automatically calculate the gross area for each individual door and
automatically include it in the ResCheck import.
So the only thing you need to do here is make sure that that door is at the
desired size, which you can set by opening it up.
And on the general panel,
make sure you have your width and height set at your desired values.
Next, if we go down to the energy values panel,
here you can specify the door type, whether it's solid or glass,
your U-Factor, and your solar heat gain coefficient,
commonly abbreviated as SHGC.
The fifth piece of information we can include is information about our windows,
starting with our gross area,
and just like with our doors Chief will automatically calculate the gross area,
so you just need to make sure that the width and height are set at your desired
values. Next, if you go down to the energy values panel,
here you can specify the frame type that you're going to be using,
the glazing type, your U-Factor,
and your SHGC.
The next piece of information we can choose to include is information about our
rooms and floors. Starting with if a room is conditioned or not.
If I click on the garage room and open up a specification,
you can see from the general panel,
we can define what type of room this area's going to be.
Chief ships with a few dozen room types and you can also add your own custom
room types and if you find yourself repeatedly making the same room types in all
your plans,
you can create your own room types in your template plan and then save your
template plan so that all your custom room types are readily available from the
moment you start each new plan.
And more information on template plans is available in another video.
Room types can be set as conditioned, or unconditioned,
which is a piece of information that gets exported from Chief and factored into
ResCheck's calculation.
This garage room type is set to be unconditioned,
but if I cancel out of this room and then double click on this living room,
you can see that I've specified it up here.
Then down below it's set to be a conditioned room type.
We can also specify the assembly type and R-values for our floor and ceiling
structures.
If I go to our default settings and click on Floors and Rooms and then current
floor,
down below we can set how the ceiling structure is going to build and how the
floor structure is going to build. If I click on edit on the floor structure,
you can see the components that are making up our floor structure assembly,
starting with a 3/4 inch of OSB and then 11 and 7/8ths fir framing material that
is structurally set to be an I-Joist.
You can see the total thickness of our floor structure platform and you can
insert or delete new layers that you need to.
And then down below you can also input your energy values for your cavity
R-value and your continuous R-value if you had one.
If we cancel out of this and go to our ceiling structure,
you can similarly add or delete layers, specify the thickness,
what type of material they are going to be made out of,
and how they should structurally build.
And then you can also add your energy values in the same area.
So this is how you can tell Chief how your floor and ceiling structure should
build and what their energy value should be for the entire floor. However,
you may want some rooms with different framing techniques and energy values.
If I cancel out of these menus
and take a 3-D framing camera overview,
you can see that our garage does not have I-Joists like the rest of the model,
and that it's going to actually be using a concrete slab foundation.
So our energy values would be different in this garage room compared to the rest
of the rooms in our house. If we go back into our floor plan
and double-click on our garage room to open it up,
and go down to the structure panel,
you'll notice that our floor structure option is grayed out and this is because
our foundation tools have smart features when building foundations under certain
room types, garage being one of them.
So it has changed the energy information and floor structure information,
we need to cancel out of this. Go down to our foundation level,
and then click on our garage foundation and open up this room,
and then go to our structure panel and then down below where it says floor
structure we can click on edit,
and we can see that we're using a 4 inch thick concrete slab and we can enter in
our R-value information.
I'm going to go ahead and cancel out of this,
and then go back up to the first floor.
And then some other notes worth mentioning before we do the export is that Chief
automatically exports the plan as a new construction type and the building
characteristic will automatically read as a 1- and 2-Family detached structure
when imported into ResCheck and we will show you where this information can be
changed in ResCheck. Additionally,
your slab perimeter and continuous R-value information are exported.
However, if you've used our manual slab tools to manually draw your slab,
the depth of installation must be manually entered in ResCheck when you do the
import. Additionally,
skylight information is not exported with your model. However,
this can be manually entered into ResCheck.
Once you're ready to do the export, go up to file, export,
export to ResCheck,
and then here you'll notice that we have a couple of options.
The first being Group Similar Walls. When this option is checked,
walls with the same properties and orientation are grouped together and treated
as one wall, regardless if you have them on the first or second floor.
If you uncheck this option, it'll treat walls on multiple floors separately.
The second option is Group Similar Doors/Windows, and when this is checked,
doors and windows with the same properties and orientation are added together
and treated as one item. When this is unchecked,
doors and windows are treated separately,
even if they have the same characteristics in a single wall.
And you can always learn more information about exporting to ResCheck by
pressing help on this menu.
Once you're ready to export go ahead and click on the export button,
and then give your ResCheck file a name and click save,
and then you'll get a message letting you know that the ResCheck export was
successful.
So now we are going to minimize Chief and on my desktop you'll notice that I
have my Chief Architect program, my ResCheck program,
and a folder containing my project file,
and that ResCheck file we just exported.
If I double click on this ResCheck file,
it's automatically going to open it up into ResCheck.
Here you can see that we're using the 2009 IECC code and we can also input
information about our location.
We'll click okay to this message, and then click okay to this message,
and then up in this corner you can change the location.
You can change the project type,
and remember Chief automatically exported it as new construction,
and you can change the building characteristics. And remember,
Chief automatically exported it as the 1- and 2- Family Detached.
We can see the client information that we specified in Chief and the designer
information that we specified in Chief.
You'll notice that this project is taking place in Coeur D'alene, Idaho,
so let's go ahead and change our location to Coeur D'alene, Idaho.
Next, if you wanted to change the code that ResCheck is referencing,
you can do that at the top of your screen as well.
Under the Tab for our envelope,
we can see all the different components that we exported.
Here you can see that back wall that we exported, the assembly type,
the orientation, the gross area, the R-values,
and the U-Factor that ResCheck will automatically calculate for our walls.
If we take a look at our Chief Architect model,
you'll notice that we have three separate windows along this back wall.
However, ResCheck has only two windows listed.
If we look at the second window right here,
you can see that the gross area is 8 square feet. So if we open up this window,
you can see that the size is 2 feet by 4 feet or 8 square feet.
Additionally,
you'll notice for this first window it has it marked as 24 square feet.
So if we open up one of these windows,
you can see that the window is 3 feet by 4 feet or 12 square feet and we have
two of them and Chief Architect has grouped these together when we've exported
them, so that matches our gross area in ResCheck.
So what we see here is the walls forming our thermal envelope around our
conditioned area, and these walls were set to be insulated walls,
this bedroom slash garage wall and this garage slash living wall,
and you can see those in our ResCheck data.
Additionally you can see our floor structure assembly,
and our R-values that we set here,
and then the same thing with our ceiling values.
If you needed to add other information,
you can add other information using the tools and features within ResCheck.
Let's go ahead and delete that line item,
and you can see that this model that we've exported is currently exceeding our
code requirements and that's going to conclude this video.
More information about exporting from Chief Architect to ResCheck is available
in the Chief Architect reference manual and help documentation and more
information about ResCheck is available through the help menu of ResCheck or
online at energycodes.gov
okay.