The floors of a zone are distinct from the ceilings of the zone, even if they share similar geometry & many features. A Floor is created automatically when a zone is drawn and might be automatically split and connected to any ceilings on levels below on creation.
Selecting:
Floors are selected in the visual view if the Visual layer is currently set to Floors on the top toolbar.
Floors share the select parent context-menu item similar to most objects, or the double-click mouse shortcut. In this case, the action selects the parent zone of the floor.
Deleting:
Floors cannot be deleted, instead they must be merged back together with any split floors of the zone. Floors are merged by using the Merge Drawing Mode which is explained in further detail in a separate section of this tutorial.
Geometry
The area of a floor is shown in the data-grid area column in square metres and represents gross area prior to the removal of any Hole area.
Splitting
Floors can be split into separate floors within a zone through various means. Firstly they can be split manually by the user using the Split Drawing Mode feature (which is dealt with in a separate section of this tutorial). This is typically performed when the floors across a zone have differing properties such as floor coverings, or insulation or adjacency. For example, in this project shown, we have a floor where the kitchen & living area form one single zone, however the floor covering changes from tile to timber etc etc.
Floors are also split automatically by Hero when any adjacent ceilings are detected on the level below. This can occur after a new zone has been created or when floors or ceilings are moved.
Offset Points (adding/deleting/how they move)
Floors can have points added to their polygon after they’ve been created.
To do so, right-click near an edge of a floor (not clicking a wall) and select the Add Point action.
This will add a floor point at the location as well as to any adjoining floors, and to any ceilings at that location if appropriate.
These points are not shared with any wall points…if you desire to add the point to a wall point as well as a floor/ceiling point then you should use the Split Wall feature.
These floor points can be deleted by right clicking them and choosing the Delete Point action. If the point can be validly deleted while keeping the floor polygon regular, then the point will be deleted.
These floor points are also created when floors are automatically or manually split by Hero.
Moving:
Floor points can be moved around by left-clicking & dragging the floor points. If there is a ceiling 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.
FLOOR CONSTRUCTION
Similar to Walls & Ceilings, Floors have a Construction or Assembly as well as Insulation Options that defines the material makeup of the Floor for simulation. The Floor Covering of the floor also adds to this material build-up of the assembly.
Assembly:
Hero has a variety of Default Floor Assemblies that can be used, and these are visible within the Construction column of the Floor Data-Grid. The current assemblies include:
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.
The suspended timber & suspended concrete assemblies that are lined below are for use when the floor is suspended such as over a subfloor zone or over the external environment, and are not to be used when there is an actual ceiling from another zone below as the ceiling material will be added already to the assembly build-up.
Changing the Assembly type in the Data-Grid may change the Adjacency type of the floor if required such as when changing from a Concrete Slab on Ground assembly which has a Ground Adjacency to a Suspended Timber assembly which changes the adjacency to Subfloor or External adjacency depending on level height, & vice-versa.
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.
Type
In addition to the Construction or Assembly of the floor, the Floor Data-Grid also contains a Type column that is used for reference & information but that if changed in the combo-box drop-down, will change both the assembly and adjacency type to the relevant defaults for that type as required. ** SHOW EXAMPLE **
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.
Slab Edge Insulation:
Concrete slab on ground & waffle-pod floors can have Slab Edge Insulation added to them via the Slab Edge Insulation column in the Floor data-grid. There are a fixed variety of typical R-value products that can be selected for the floor.
Floor Covering:
Floor covering are used to model the effects of various materials on top of the floor assembly such as Carpet, Timber, Tiles etc. The floor covering materials are added to the top of the floor in simulation. The variety of options of floor coverings in Hero include:
Timber
Carpet
Tile
Vinyl
Cork
Brick
Stone
Earth
There is also an Exposed Floor Covering which denotes no real floor covering. This option is only available for slab floor assemblies.
The material layers of these floor coverings is detailed further on the Hero web-site.
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.
Floor Adjacency Types
Similar to Walls & Ceilings, Floors have a variety of different adjacency conditions that are determined by whether the floor 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 meaning that no effective heat transfer is modelled between them.
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.
Subfloor Ventilation
Floors with a Subfloor adjacency can toggle the ventilation rate of that subfloor zone through the Ventilation column of the Floor data-grid. This is described in further detail in the Subfloor Zone section.
Roofspace Soffit Floors
When a Ceiling has a Roof-space connection such as from an Attic assembly type, then a special Soffit floor will be automatically created for the roofspace and will become visible in the Floor Data-Grid tab. These are discussed further in the Roof-space Zone section.