Cannon Design Blog

Energy modeling is great when it gives accurate information, but can be disastrous when it gives inaccurate information.
As an example, there are 8,000 registered users of eQuest, a program that has been shown to be deficient in assessing the value of insulated thermal mass, which has been recognized in the Advanced Energy Design Guides( co-produced by AIA, USGBC, USDOE, and ASHRAE) as the most energy efficient insulation configuration for mass walls, in all climate zones. Imagine the life cycle cost of eliminating insulated thermal mass systems in the early design phase, for 8,000 buildings that can last fifty to seventy-five years. Until we create a program that can give an accurate assessment of the benefits of insulated thermal mass, and also introduce that program widely, we are wasting an incredible amount of energy. My company has been dramatically affected by this. We have an existing insulated thermal mass block building that thermally outperforms an energy model of that same building, built to LEED 3.0 standards, with R-54 walls. The existing building has a heating and cooling energy cost of 33 cents per sq ft annually, and the LEED model has a projected heating and cooling cost of 53 cents per sq ft. We approached one of the world’s largest retailers several years ago, and after much dialogue, they told us that their DOE2 based modeling program does not show any difference between their present construction methods (8″ block with perlite filled cores) and our insulated thermal mass wall system. Based on that company’s aggressive build out, we could have saved them about a hundred million dollars in energy costs over the first ten years, if they had used our product. Bad information has an enormous impact on design.