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An energy auditor brought up great questions:
- Does it matter what direction I specify a man-door faces if it’s in an attached garage?
- Do I need to do any special inputs?
Unfortunately we don’t currently have the means to directly model the impact of attached garages (with of the floor of a conditioned space above a garage). It is relatively high on our list of future improvements.
The walls and doors of the garage itself (i.e. the boundaries between the inside of the garage and the outdoors) should never be modeled in OptiMiser, unless the garage is directly conditioned. In this case, it should be treated as part of the home.
The walls and doors of the main home that are adjacent to the garage will effectively have a lower U-factor. The impact would vary significantly with climate and configuration, but I think 30% reduction would be reasonable. For a door this would have negligible impact on overall building loads, but for an uninsulated wall it could be significant. You can view the U-factor for the wall on the ||Path popup. For a typical frame wall it would be about equivalent to adding an R-2 batt.
It is best that you treat them the way you care much of your important door. Just as me, one I change the interior door to this design http://caldwells.com/interior-doors, I also made a decision to redesign the back doors.
In my opinion, every factors matters and does have an impact on the overall outcome. Thus, even if there is a slight change of angle that varies from your man-door to your main storage garage door, you have to take note of it. This will help to better build a solid foundation that can maintain your structure for a prolonged period of time.
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