does anyone here use u-value software and if so which one and why.

tia.

I use the BRE U-value Calculator purely because they kinda wrote the method ( not necessarily right I know) so hopefully they are as acturate as they can be. Also have an NHER calculator which I find easier to use for some reason (probably because I had that 1 first)

Agu

not sure if you can get it separtely from the SAP programme but if you can I would imagine that it has to be brought

I have a reaasonably accurate spreadsheet u-value calculator, though does not allow for thermal bridging so is not strictly compliant with latest Part L revision. Drop me an e-mail and I'll send you a copy.

Whats OS10?

Posted By: skywalkerAnd if anyone finds one that works with OS10 there are a whole bunch of us interested.

Mike do you recon your excel one would work on my 1930's construction?

S.

Yes, it will give you a good approximate value. It does not account for thermal bridging which must now be considered for Part L. In some cases the value of the bridging is ignored anyway! Drop me an e-mail and I'll send it to you [and anyone else who wants it]. Don't know if it works on MAC - you can be the guinea pig.

I recently watched a Mac in use for a couple of days while a friend photoshopped for me, and was deeply impressed at the smooth fluidity of it, compared to the grittiness of my PC. That is, presumably, the fluidity of OS10, compared to Windows? Thinking seriously .... Apparently now that Macs use Intel processors, emulation is much less of a problem, and faster - true? So can one run heavy duty Windows software on a Mac, with emulation, on OS10, or does it have to run on Windows for Mac, so you're back to square one?

The two popular emulators that run on OS X are from VMware and Parallels - both are very very fast and you'd have no trouble running heavy duty windows programs. Bear in mind that you'll have to share RAM between your emulated OS and your real OS. You can choose how much RAM to give your virtual machine when you boot it up - I only use it for some software development and office apps, so 750Mb is usually fine. If you're going to be using virtual machines a lot, then 3Gb of RAM on your mac is really the minimum.
The virtual machine performance is really very good, I often run 2 virtual machines at the same time, 1 Windows XP and 1 Ubuntu Linux on top of my normal OS X which is running browsers, email, skype, etc.
The other cool feature of virtual machines is that you can take snapshots of them that save their state - and then you can roll back to those snapshots whenever you like. E.g. install a fresh copy of windows and office and your other favourite apps, then take a snapshot and continue working. When the virtual machine becomes virus infected or plagued by spyware, then just roll back to the snapshot image and start over. It's the only way to work with Windows really :)

...and the virtual machine images or transferable between Mac and PCs. So if you create an ubuntu image under Vmware for OS X, you can boot that image on another pc that has Vmware for windows. And visa versa.

Posted By: fostertom'Scuse this off-topic but ...

Those emulators, and their fastness - is it different for Intel and PowerPC Macs?

Yes, it makes a HUGE difference. To run windows on a PPC Mac you'd have to use a true "emulation" tool that translates the Intel instructions in to PPC instructions - this is painfully slow even for office applications on very fast PPCs.
(I think Microsoft's Virtual PC is the only option for "emulation". Both VMware and Parallels provide "virtualisation" and will only work on intel macs).

Running say Autocad on a Mac with emulation, does that mean you have to instal Windows and run the Autocad through that, or can the Autocad (apparently) run through OS10? If it has to run on Windows, then does anything remain of the Macs delightful smoothness in use?

You still have to install windows and install autocad on windows within the virtual machine, but there is some flexibility in how you view the application you can choose to:
a) view Windows full screen so that it appears as though you're only running windows on the mac
b) view Windows in its own window so that the whole OS appears to be just another Mac app
c) run windows in "Unity" or "Coherence" mode where you don't see Windows anywhere, you just see the Windows applications running on OS X - as if they were OS X apps. But of course the application itself still looks and behaves like a Windows application.

So you won't get any Mac magic within autocad, because it'll still be the same old windows app you're used to - but you can see the beautiful gleam of OS X peaking out behind it

They might have VMware installed at an Apple store if you can get to one - actually trying it out might give you a better feel for how the integration works.

Yes

VPC is the only one left.

Photoshop is generally smoother and faster, as are other common applications.

All the menus and commands are very similar if not identical.

As for autocad they was talk of them producing a MAC version a few years back but you could always migrate to Vectorworks which I like a lot.

http://www.nemetschek.net/

S.

For those that are interested there is an article on Aecbytes which goes over the various sustainable design software tools available for CAD/BIM applications.

The products covered are:

Graphisoft EcoDesigner
Autodesk Ecotect Analysis 2010
VE-Gaia from IES
Bentley’s Tas and Hevacomp
DesignBuilder

http://www.aecbytes.com/feature/2009/AIA2009_EnergyApps.html

Our sap calculator is cross-platform and runs on OSX (I think we are the only Apple developer in this field). we have just included a U-value module and this should be ready for release before Christmas.

Cheers
Paul
www.completepicture.co.uk

Also for truly accurate U-value calculations try easyU Calculator from http://www.oakdenecarpentry.co.uk/easyu.html its an excel spreadsheet that can calculate U-values for building elements with up to 10 bridged or non-bridges layers. There is a free 4 layer version for download.

www.thermalcalconline.com