Comment of HAP

[Drazen]

Dear colleagues,

Using different load calculation programs over years, I was in touch only with demo version of HAP.

Now I am considering buying a full version of HAP.

Any comments on long-term usefulness in practice?

 

[gepman]

If you are a system designer then HAP is a good tool. If you are an energy analyst there are better tools available. I have used HAP for over five years and have not had a problem with its load calculation capabilities (although I wish it would allow supply air temperatures and room thermostat settings down to -40 F) (for cold storages).

You can find a listing of all the different building software tools at

http://www.eere.energy.gov/buildings/tools_directory/subjects_sub.cfm.

You can find a comparison of twenty popular software tools at

http://www.eere.energy.gov/building...ergy_performance_simulation_programs_v1.0.pdf

 

[walkes]

I have used HAP for 10 years or so, DOS based and Windows based versions. It is generally the tool we use for doing load analysis for our designs. There are also occasions where we use it for energy analysis as well.
Preliminary energy analysis for schematic design may be something like eQuest, but if the model is already constructed in HAP then it is fairly easy to go a step further to the energy analysis components.

 

[marcoh]

We use HAP for load analysis and would have no issues in recommending the package. Like any software, it does have some limitations, and for advanced building modelling there are better packages (but then they don't do others things as well as HAP!)