3B-Coast is mentioned as one of the 16 DOE commercial reference building climate zones, but is not an option when using the Create DOE Prototype Building measure. Why is this?
The climate zone is used to determine the appropriate construction sets per ASHRAE 90.1. There is not a distinction in ASHRAE 90.1 between 3B and 3B-Coast.
From the prototype model report: U.S. Department of Energy Commercial Reference Building Models of the National Building Stock
"We selected a revised set of locations as a balance of the representativeness of the climate and the number of buildings in each climate zone (see Table 2). Two locations were selected for climate zone 3B because they represent different climates within one zone, which is evident from the reference building model energy simulation results. These subclimate zones are designated as “3B-CA” for the California coast and “3B-other” for the remaining part of climate zone 3B."
@mdahlhausen I don't quite understand. The reason a distinction was made between the two subclimate zones in the report is because "they represent different climates." Why would a user of the Create DOE Prototype Building measure not need to differentiate between the two climates as well? Is it assumed that users of this measure are only going to be using it to comply with ASHRAE 90.1? I feel I am missing something...
They have the same construction set requirements. So the "code" building would be built exactly the same in the two climates.
Okay, so essentially the only thing that would be different when running CreateDOEPrototypeBuilding with 3B-Coast would be the weather file that is loaded, correct?
Yes, that is correct.
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