Slant/Fin Hydronic Explorer 2.0 Help Needed

Earl

I'm doing room by room heat loss using Slant/Fin Hydronic Explorer 2.0 software. The issue I have is the program wants room height, lenght and width. Which is ok on a square room. I have some rooms that aren't square shaped. Would be easier to use square foot measurements. I'm no math wizz. Can you convert a rooms square foot to feet mesurements to plug into the program? What do you guys do with odd shaped rooms while using this program or one that doesn't take square foot measurements?



I'm doing the heat loss to check baseboard heaters for sizing as well as the boiler on my home as a home owner, I'm not a Tech.  



Thanks,

Earl

STEVEusaPA

Time to brush up ....

On geometry. I have come across this too. I just break the odd shape rooms into rectangles and triangles, and do the math that way.

Do you have a specific problem your trying to solve?

Ironman

Dimensions

Those are perimeter (exposed) wall measurements that are needed. Room square footage is only applicable for calculating exposed floors or ceilings.

Paul48

Earl

As said, if you nest identical triangles, they form a square or rectangle, and you can calculate square footage easily......ya follow?

Earl

exposed wall lenght is asked separately per room

Program asks for ceiling height, lenght and width of each room. It also asks for total lenght of exposed walls for each room as well. So a 10X10 room with 8' ceiling is plugged in, than 10' is used in the exposed wall block since only one wall is exposed. If the room had two exposed walls than the exposed wall answer would be 20'. That's all easy stuff, but when you want to add closets and do rooms are aren't boxed shaped, I'm lost. lol Just wish the program would take sqft measurements instead.



Thanks,

Earl 

Earl

I only took basic general math in school

I only took basic general math in school as required by law. So I either never learned it, or I long forgot it. lol





Earl

Earl

I can do sqft

I follow, I know how to get sqft measurements but the program wants height, lenght and widths. My bathroom is very odd shaped but I easily found the sqft of 80. But program doesn't want sqft. My kitchen is also odd shaped.



Maybe if I broke the room up into like two rooms and plug it in as two rooms but added them together to get heat loss??



Thanks,

Earl

Ironman

Can't Calculate by Square Footage of Room

Suppose you have a 10x10 room. That's 100 sq. feet with 20 lineal feet of exposed wall. Next, you have a room that's 16x4. That's 64 sq. feet, but it also has 20 lineal feet of exposed wall.



It's the exposed walls that have the heat loss, partition walls have none. Thus, the sq. footage does not indicated the amount of exposed wall. Get the picture?

Paul48

Try

One end of that 10 x10 room has the odd shape that equals 15 sq ft. The room becomes 10 x 11.5

Earl

Believe I'm seeing some of the light

So the program is only using the lenght and width of the room to figure heat loss to the floor and ceiling? And the exposed wall height and lenght is used to calulate the heat loss by the program? I have vented attic space above and uninsulated unheated unvented basement below.

So if the above is correct, I still need decent lenght and width mesurements of the room so the program can calulate the ceiling and floor heat loss, correct?  



Thanks,

Earl

Ironman

Correct

Room sq. footage WOULD indicate the size of the floor or ceiling, but not the size of the walls. Therefore, the shape is not relevant.



The calculations are based on the sq. footage of each COMPONENT of the building: the square footage of the windows, the doors, the walls, the floors, the ceilings, etc. Each EXPOSED component is treated as a "panel" and calculated based on its own square footage.

icesailor

Cubic Size:

But the cubic size (LxWxH) affects the infiltration and air change per hour measurement. One exposed wall equals 1/2 air change per hour. Two exposed walls equals one air change per hour and three outside walls or an entry hall equals 1 1/2 air change per hour. As far as bathrooms, they add 20% for bathrooms. It is my experience that the average bath is so small that it mat only need 1 1/2' of baseboard. So, many of us just put a 3' baseboard in. No one ever complains about a warm bathroom when you get out of the shower at 4:30 AM.

In the H-22 Heat Loss Guide, the infiltration tables are based on LxWx 8' high. There are correction tables for higher ceilings.

If you learned to use the IBR H-22 Heat Loss Guide and understand the "Modern Method" and the "Detailed Method", you learn to switch back and forth. And id=f you fully understand it, you can manipulate the Hydronic Explorer. Everything rounds off to the nearest hundred, Whatever heat emitter you use, you round up.

If you are trying to determine what the installer did, because of the "fudge factor", you have to take that into consideration. Remember, the designer "rounded up" everything in relation to the unknown.