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A Ceiling is created automatically when a Zone is drawn and might be automatically Split and Connected to any Floors on Levels above on creation.

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CEILINGS WITHIN THE VISUAL VIEW

Selecting

Ceilings are selected in the Visual View if the Floor / Ceiling Visual Layer is currently set to Ceiling on the Visual View’s Top Toolbar. For further information on the Floor / Ceiling Visual Layer see: Visual View Top Toolbar

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Ceilings cannot be Deleted, instead they must be Merged back together with any Split ceilings of the zone. Ceilings are merged by using the Merge Drawing Mode which is explained in further detail in Split & Merge Drawing Mode

Area, Pitch & Pitched Area

For raked or sloped ceilings within a Zone, the Pitch can be entered in the Pitch column of the Ceiling Data-Grid in degrees.

This is the Internal Pitch of the Internal Ceiling Layer of the Ceiling, and not the pitch of the External Roof. The Pitch of the External Roof of a Ceiling is set by Hero automatically and cannot currently be adjusted.

The Pitched Area of a Ceiling is shown in the Data-Grid Area column in square metres and represents gross area not accounting for any Skylight area.

The Area is the Pitched Area, in that any Pitch entered in the Pitch column will automatically adjust the 2D area of the Ceiling to account for the increase in area by any slope or raked Ceiling.

Splitting Ceilings

Ceilings can be Split into separate Ceilings within a Zone through various means.

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These Ceiling Points are also created when Ceilings are automatically or manually split by Hero.

Moving

Ceiling points Points can be moved around within the Visual View by left-clicking & dragging the ceiling points. If there is a floor sharing this point, it will also be moved. Similar to many move actions, holding shift while moving will lock the move in a straight horizontal or vertical direction.

Note that at the end of a move, Hero performs a check for whether the floors within a zone should auto-merge. This feature is required to reduce the number of floors that get created through splits & moving points. A floor will automatically merge back into other similar floors if they share similar properties such as Assembly, Insulation, Covering & Adjacency type. If you have just split a floor and then are trying to adjust the points of the split, to avoid this auto-merging of similar floors you should change the properties of the newly split floor to the different properties that it represents before doing the move point, otherwise you’ll merge the newly split floor and have to repeat yourself.

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CEILING

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CONSTRUCTIONS

Similar to Walls & Floors, Ceilings have a Construction or Assembly as well as Ceiling Insulation & Roof Insulation Options that defines the material makeup of the Ceiling for Simulation. Theses are discussed in further detail in the Data-Grid section below. 

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CEILINGS WITHIN THE DATA-GRID

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• Concrete slab on-ground types of various thicknesses

• Concrete waffle pod slabs of various thickness.

• Suspended timber floors, one unlined & one lined with fibre-cement sheet below

• Suspended concrete floors of various thicknesses & lining.

• And a suspended AAC or Hebel-type floor assembly

It should be note that the Suspended Timber floors are referring to Timber only as the structural material and that the Floor Covering determines whether the floor has timber floorboards or not, not the assembly selected in the Construction column.

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Floors that have an adjacent ceiling below them will not be able to change to a Ground type assembly such as Concrete Slab on Ground or Waffle Pod slabs and these options are not shown.

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Insulation

The insulation (if any) can added to a floor via the Insulation column of the Floor data-grid. There are variety of floor insulation options available depending on the Floor Construction.

For Slab on Ground assemblies the options are several common R-value underslab insulation products.

For Waffle Pod assemblies the options are the various thickness of EPS-foam waffle-pod void formers that lie below the slab. The R-values are the thermally bridged R-values that account for the concrete ribs or beams across the floor. There is also a uninsulated option in the list for non-foam based waffle-pods such as plastic void formers etc.

For Suspended Floors there are a variety of Insulation options that represent common insulation systems including:

• No insulation – this would be used if the Floor was exposed directly below it such as a Timber Floorboard where the Floorboards are directly exposed & visible from underneath; or for a Suspended Concrete slab floor where the slab is exposed to the air directly underneath.

• Non reflective air-gap – this would be appropriate for most common internal floors where between the Floor Covering and Ceiling below there is an empty air-gap if uninsulated.

• a variety of batt insulation products

• reflective air-gaps combined with bulk insulation options which would be appropriate to use to simulate reflective membrane insulation products such as Kingspan’s Permifloor, or reflective rigid EPS insulation products such as Foilboard, etc of various thicknesses & reflectivity.

Internal Floor/Ceiling Construction

When a floor has an adjacent ceiling below it, such as on a two-story dwelling, or between two apartment dwellings, the full material buildup for the assembly is determined by both the Floor & the Ceiling’s properties.

An internal ceiling can only have a plasterboard ceiling or exposed ceiling assembly applied to it; and the internal ceiling will not be able to have Insulation applied to it in the Data-Grid. If this internal floor/ceiling is to be insulated, the insulation gets applied to the floor above. The complete material build-up that will be simulated is the Floor Covering followed by the Floor Assembly followed by any Floor Insulation followed by the Ceiling Assembly below.

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Adjacency Types

Similar to Walls & Floors, Floors Ceilings have a variety of different adjacency conditions Adjacency Conditions that are determined by whether the floor Ceiling is adjacent to actual model objects or that can be selected manually be the user.

Floors that are adjacent to a Ceiling from the same dwelling, will have an Internal Adjacency type, and this adjacency type cannot be changed in the data-grid.

Floors that are adjacent to a Ceiling from another dwelling will have a Neighbouring Adjacency type, again this cannot be changed in the data-grid. Neighbouring adjacency types are simulated as adiabatic boundaries in the simulation .

Most “Automatic” Adjacency Types (i.e. those determined by Hero) cannot be changed within the Data-Grid Adjacency Column, whereas the Manual Options can.

Floors that are adjacent to a Carpark or Corridor zone will have a Carpark or Corridor adjacency type selected which again cannot be changed.

For floors that are not adjacent to another ceiling below, then there are a variety of adjacency types that can be manually selected by the user to model specific conditions.

Floors of a ground-type such as Concrete slab or Waffle-pod assemblies have a GROUND adjacency type and if the adjacency type is changed then the assembly will be automatically changed away from a Ground type assembly.

Floors can have a Subfloor adjacency type, which when changed will automatically create a subfloor special zone underneath the floor, or if a subfloor zone already exists on that level, will expand the subfloor zone to encompass the area below the newly changed floor. Subfloor zones are detailed further in the Zone section of this tutorial and have many special properties.

If the floor is sufficiently elevated such that area below it does not form a subfloor zone, then the EXTERNAL adjacency type should be used. This represents a floor that is simply adjacent to the External environment temperature.

Roofspace Ventilation

Ceilings with a Roofspace adjacency can toggle the ventilation rate of that roofspace zone through the Ventilation column of the Ceiling data-grid. This is described in further detail in the Roofspace Zone section.

External Colour:

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