A Free User-Friendly Design Tool that Shows How To Reduce Cooling Energy in Buildings

HEED (Home Energy Efficient Design) shows architects, builders, and homeowners how to design or remodel their buildings to reduce or even eliminate air conditioning loads. It is intended for use at the very beginning of the design process, when most of the critical decisions effecting energy consumption are made. This paper goes step-by-step through a typical building remodeling design using HEED. It shows graphically the differences in performance between various passive cooling alternatives including things like window shading, thermal mass, ventilation, improved envelope, and optimized shape and orientation, etc. Among the features users especially appreciate is the simple way they can draw in floor plans and how they can drag and drop windows onto each facade. HEED shows them bar charts comparing the difference in heating and cooling energy costs for up to nine different designs. The objective is to facilitate a simple, non-technical, smooth flowing, decision-making experience. Once the user defines four facts about their project (total floor area, number of stories, location, and building type), HEED’s built-in expert system automatically designs two buildings, the first is a Basecase building that meets California’s Title 24, and the second is an even more Energy Efficient version that is usually about 30% better. This new free design tool can use climate data for over 600 stations around the world. HEED is available at no cost via the internet (www.aud.ucla.edu/heed).