SuperHeat 2002 changes

Release 5.02a: 2 December 2002

This release has been reassessed and approved by BRE as it incorporates a change affecting SAP Ratings. Changes:

1. You can now enter a solar panel area when the main means of heating DHW is an immersion heater: previously you could only do this when there was a cylinder heated by a boiler

2. The Rf insulation limit for ground floors with overall insulation has been raised from 2.5 to 3.0 - the additional figures have been calculated using the same formulae used to calculate the original Table C1. Where the insulation provides a greater thermal resistance than this, a note is now added stating that the excess has been ignored

3. The Building Summary report now shows the total opening areas (with metal/non-metal split except in NI)

4. The compliance reports now show more clearly which set of provisions are being used

5. A correction has been made re checking of non-domestic buildings for compliance with the Part J (Scotland) Elemental requirements - previously we made separate checks on the average U-values of doors and windows and of rooflights: now the average U-values of all metal and non-metal framed openings are checked. The layout of the non-dwelling Elemental report has also been revised.

Release 5.01a: 21 November 2002

1. Non domestic buildings in England, Wales and Scotland: ERROR CORRECTED - PLEASE NOTE: When checking for compliance with the L2 Calculation & Part J Heat Loss methods: we made a mistake in applying the rule (which did apply before this year's change, and still applies in NI) that where the actual building has opening areas less than that allowed by the Elemental Method, such lower areas should be used when calculating the heat loss of the notional building. This is not correct: the notional building now has the full area of window and rooflight openings regardless of what is in the actual building, so in some cases a building could be shown as not complying when it did. However, where the actual opening area is less than that allowed by the Elemental Method you are given a tolerance of just 0.02 for the average U-value of the solid elements, so you cannot (say) reduce window areas to allow a poorer level of wall insulation. You can, though, reduce the window or rooflight area and use glazing with a worse U-value than required by the Elemental Method - though note the requirement to provide adequate daylighting - or use this method to allow one wall area to have a much higher U-value, compensated for by another wall area with a better than required U-value. For a more detailed discussion see our web site

2. You can now define where the INI file(s) used to store the program settings are located, a change which has been requested by a number of network administrators.

3. The required minimum efficiency for oil combis when checking against the Elemental Method has been corrected to 82%

4. Where ground floor insulation provides a thermal resistance higher than that shown in tables C1-C3 the excess is ignored; a note to this effect is now added to the U-value calculation where this applies.

5. The Construction Library materials list now shows the resistance/resistivity of the material

6. The User Setup dialog now lets you delete unwanted page heading templates - if you also have SuperBeam and/or ProSteel installed, note that the same heading templates are shared by all three.

7. A new 'Information' option has been added to the Configuration menu. This displays information about the program including licence details and file names and locations.

8. There is a pending change (which has to be approved by BRE before we make it public) to allow solar panels to be used in conjunction with cylinders heated by immersion heaters - currently this is (incorrectly) a disallowed combination.

Release 5.00e: 12 August 2002

The key change is that the provisions of N.I. Technical Booklet F 1998 edition have now been implemented in the program and are applied when you select 'N.I.' in the Building Details dialog. There are now two editions of the manual: one for users in England, Wales and Scotland, the other for users in Northern Ireland

1. The Elemental Report for extensions has been enhanced to show the floor area and (in E&W) whether or not the extension meets the alternative way of showing compliance in §1.12 (trade-off U-values). For buildings being checked in accordance with Part L (E&W), the Elemental U-value for roofs with insulation between rafters in extensions has been changed from 0.2 to 0.3 (though note that this relaxation technically only applies to rooms in roofs)

2. The Elemental Report for extensions no longer shows the heating system efficiency in E&W as our reading of Part L is that this is not a material factor in determining compliance. In Scotland the heating system type and efficiency determines the U-values to be used.

3. A bug has been fixed that could cause an inaccurate calculation of U-values for newly added constructions containing two or three alternate heat paths

4. A bug has been fixed that gave an incorrect value for permissible rooflight areas in non-domestic buildings where the avereage U-value of the rooflights was more than the Elemental standard when checking for compliance with the Elemental Method

5. The Ground Floor edit dialog now accepts floor P/A ratios down to 0.05 instead of 0.10 which enables the U-values of much larger floors to be calculated (for example the previous limit for a 40m wide floor was a 40m length; there is now no limit)

6. The U-values of solid floors with overall insulation are now calculated using Appendix C rather than by adding the thermal resistance of the insulation to that of the uninsulated floor: this may give a slightly worse U-value than before

7. Cutting a wall from the Project Manager didn't force a recalculation - fixed

8. The Element of Construction edit dialog didn't handle wider than normal scroll bars - fixed

9. The presentation of several reports has been improved

Release 5.00d: 23 April 2002

The main change is a completely revised way of handling opening areas when checking buildings using the Elemental and Calculation/Heat Loss methods. For a full explanation click here

The floor edit dialog now adds a helper button which displays the semi-exposed element additional thermal resistance dialog (as for semi-exposed walls)

Release 5.00c: 16 April 2002

limited distribution only

1. When checking a dwelling against Part J (Scottish regulations) Elemental requirements, the dwelling would be shown as failing if the heating system was not one of those listed in Table 2. This was not correct: in such cases the lower U-value limits in Table 1 Column B apply. The necessary change has been made.

2. When checking against the Elemental Method requirements, the calculation for the allowable door and window opening areas was incorrect, and gave too low a permissible area: the correct calculation (for dwellings) is permissible area of openings x (Elemental Method openings U-value-Elemental Method wall U-value)/(actual average U-value of openings - Elemental Method wall U-value). The calculation in 5.00a and 5.00b left out the last term.

Release 5.00b: 12 April 2002

This fixes two small bugs that have just shown up:

1. The roof edit dialog would not accept an overridden U-value - fixed

2. The bitmaps in the help file were missing (note that the help file text is taken from SuperHeat 4 and has only been partly revised)

Release 5.00a: 28 March 2002

Fully revised to check buildings against the 2002 Part L and Part J requirements and produce SAP-2001 ratings. (Northern Ireland version will be available at the end of June 2002). Do NOT install SuperHeat 5 alongside SuperHeat 4.00a-4.57a inc. (all SuperHeat 4 users who upgrade have been or will be sent 4.57b or 4.57c).

Release 4.57c: 1 March 2002

This incorporates minor internal changes which reduce the memory used by the program.

Enrolled in our web update scheme?: If you are using 4.57b with no problems there is no particular reason to download this update. Users of earlier versions are advised to do so (you will need to have entered an activation key ending in 202 or greater to do so). If your activation key was sent with a serial number starting with 456 please request a new serial number starting with 457 and its corresponding activation key

Release 4.57b: 26 February 2002

Minor change because of a problem with reading the new format SEDBUK database which did not show up when using the test file previously supplied to us.

Release 4.57a: 13 February 2002

1. In support of the new SAP2001 rating the SEDBUK database format is being changed and SuperBeam 4.57 will handle the new format (which will be used from 1 March 2002); SuperHeat 4.55 and 4.56 will not.

2. SuperHeat 4.57 will read SuperHeat 5 building files, though some details may be changed (for example some of the heating control options in SAP2001/SuperHeat 5 are not included in SAP1998/SuperHeat 4). This facility is intended for use in exceptional circumstances only, for example when you have started a job in SuperHeat 5 (with SAP 2001) and you need to produce a SAP 1998 rating

3. SuperHeat 5 generates construction library files contains additional data relating to U-value corrections. SuperHeat 4.57 does not use this data but preserves it if you re-save the Construction Library (i.e. you can use the same Construction Library with SuperHeat 4.57 and SuperHeat 5). Earlier releases will throw up error messages if you try and use a Construction Library file generated by SuperHeat 5 and will drop the additional data.

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