<HTML><BODY> Hi Arianna   here some ideas and thoughts to your questions below.   > I have started a new model for the houses I am retrofitting. I need to > know heating and cooling load (overheating risk) as well as delivered > energy (comprising hot water and electricity) and primary energy (if > possible) for the houses as they are before the retrofitting. The model > works and I am starting to run the first simulations, and I have a few > questions. Do I need to establish an ideal control loop in order to > know > what the h! eating load is with ESP? Is there a way with ESP-r to > establish set points temperature so to have heating and cooling loads > without establish a control loop?   As far as I am aware, you need to set up a simple (building) control loop. An ideal controller for heating and cooling with appropriate setpoints should suffice, initially. How many zones do you have? The setup of such a control is fairly straight-forward via the project manager. Also, most exemplars have at least heating defined.   > Can I get the heat loss coefficient > for the building structure (independent of set point temperature and > degree days) by simulating the model on a free float base? If so, is > there by using the energy! balance function in the res tool?   Not quite clear, what you mean, here. Have you written (and printed and checked) the QA report available? In this, the U-values and average UA values for the constructions are given for each zone. I don't think you can extract the heat loss coefficient by running the building free-float in any direct way. The heat storage in constructions will get in the way. If, however, you defined a climate with constant outside temperature (e.g. 0°C) and an ideal control for the zone(s) (e.g. 20 °C) and ran this to "static" conditions (i.e. no fluctuations of temperatures in the system), you could then calculate your average UA for the zone(s).   Best Achim   </BODY></HTML>