Hey Dominic do you think it would be possible to add calculations to the hip program. I do a lot of energy audits, blower door test, ect… and was wondering if there would be a possibility to add calculating fields to hip. I currently use a PDF program for my testing results that does all my calculations for me in the field. I would much rather use the hip program than the PDF program.
Thanks for being on here.
What type of calculations are you looking for?
Have you started using the Home Energy Score features in HIP yet?
Oh boy I was afraid you would ask that question. Some of the simple calculations are:
Blower door: (cfm50 x 60)/ volume of the structure
Duct leakage:
cfm25/square footage served
cfm0/square footage served
AHREA 62:2:
(Number of bedrooms+1)*7.5 + (square footage/100)
Those are the easier ones but probably used the most. If you have ever done an active PDF program it would make a little more sense how to do it. I usually have data slots that I pull information off of the home and they help populate the formula fields and eventually spit out all the answers. It would probably have to be an editable system so different Raters could set up which calculations they like to use. There are plenty of others I didn’t list because they get complex.
But it may be worth looking into for you guys to reach out into this area of the field. There are more programs every year being created in this field but I find your app system as one of the best for generating reports, plus many of the other programs want a fee per report to use them, and in my area of the country there is not enough margin to pay anything more than we already do.
I have not looked at the home energy score, but will take a look. The majority of my work is done in either diagnostics, code compliance, or energy star certification.