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madengineer

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Has anyone used Trace 700 software? I'm not an HVAC guy but I am heading that way. Does any one have any suggested software other than Trace?

 
Has anyone used Trace 700 software? I'm not an HVAC guy but I am heading that way. Does any one have any suggested software other than Trace?
in my opinion TRACE is the best software when you want to design the HVAC part in very great detail. It also helps designing with ASHRAE ventilation rates etc. the only drawback is that it doesn't have a Wizzard. Either you import the building from REVIT etc. Or you manually enter room dimensions, which is tedious (they promised to improve that).

TRACE requires the subscription with that you get support. support is really great. I even learned quite a lot about HVAC systems modeling in TRACE some years ago.

Don't buy the TRANE duct and pipe sizing software. Use Revit or some other software for that.

Many people like eQuest for energy simulations and it is easy to use and free, but the HVAC part is less than detailed. Since LEED is a joke anyway (you can get certification for a building that doesn't even exist, and it assumes a baseline of a air source heat pump, which makes it in WI really easy to do better :), eQuest often is used for that. but if you design and simulate, use TRACE

 
Our company uses Carrier Hourly Analysis Program (HAP).

It's not bad either. From my understanding, HAP and TRACE are very similar in capability and the same can be said regarding excellent support, although I've never used TRACE.

I do find companies using TRACE more often than HAP. I also know from experience that some government work will require eQuest to be used since the DOE now maintains the code, but I personally have never used it.

If you have questions on HAP, please let me know and I will do my best to answer them.

 
We also use HAP in our office. We really only use it if we have to do an energy simulation. We use a program called design master for our everyday heat load and mechanical drafting. It installs into autocad and you can do everything in your drawing file. If you are looking to do basic heat loads and mechanical drafting it is a pretty good solution. www.designmaster.biz is their web address. good luck

 
We use Trace in our office and it is pretty easy to use. We use it for our everyday load calcs, cost analysis, and energy models. Around here, (in South Dakota) we don't have an energy code, but we do a lot of work in Iowa. Iowa allows Trace for energy modeling, but it changes from state to state. I have used Equest and while it is easier to use it doesn't give the same amount of detail that is needed for something like LEED.

I have imported a Revit file into Trace for load calcs and it can be just a tedious as just puting it into Trace manually. At least in Trace, it likes to create 20 or 30 small "walls" that can overall throw off your load calcs if it is on the west or east side of the building.

Overall I think it is a good program.

 
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