Verification Method JV3 Explained

JV3 Assessments are a complicated beast & not many Building Thermal Assessors know how to do them correctly. How do you check the validity of your Energy Efficiency Report to verify it’s correct? What conditions should apply to the assessment?

Your JV3 Report Should Include:

• Details of ABCB Protocol-compliant software used. Our JV3 reports are assessed using the most up-to-date version of DesignBuilder™ software.
• Notice that the calculations have followed the JV3 conditions (see below), including if they were performed on plans as supplied or modified, and for a Reference Building also in strict accordance with the JV3 requirements. All our assessments meet these requirements.
• The assessor’s details, stating that the assessment has been carried out by a trained, competent person. All our assessors have professional engineering qualifications & have been fully trained.
• A statement of the quality assurance & continual improvement system in place. We have a fully certified
  ISO9001 Quality Management System with documented assessment procedures which helps drive our quest for continual improvement in our professional consulting services.

Conditions for JV3 Thermal Simulations

A proper JV3 Assessment should have the following settings in the software:

• 3D model of the building in correct location, orientation and weather.
• Schedules for occupancy, internal heat loads, lighting and HVAC system.
• Simulation for 8760 hours (every single hour in a whole year), with an operating schedule of at least 2500 hours/year.
• Calculate aggregate heat transfer & cumulative energy consumption.
• Thermostats should be set at 18°C to 26°C. Note that these are wider than a typical building’s actual thermostats.
• Air conditioning plant and Artificial Lighting complies with NCC Parts J5 and J6.
• The air conditioning & heating Annual Energy Efficiency Ratio (AEER) must comply with NCC Performance Requirement JP3, while the cooling AEER must comply with MEPS (see energyrating.gov.au for more info).
• The HVAC Design Factors used were 1.0 for 98% coverage — actual systems will have a higher design factor to account for sizing, redundancy, maintenance & response.
• The fresh air rate is 10L/sec/person or as per AS1668.2. The Infiltration rate is 1.0 air changes/hour for the perimeter zone while the HVAC plant is operating.

The simulated Reference Building should be identical to the actual building except for the following conditions:

• Solar Absorptance (a) of Walls = 0.6 & Roof = 0.7
• DTS-compliant insulation in all envelope elements (roof + ceiling, walls, floor)
• DTS-compliant glazing to all orientations (including roof lights)
• All other conditions match the proposed building

The report should specify which elements do & don’t comply with DTS . In assessing the roof R-value, compression of the bulk insulation at the purlins needs to be either prevented by the use of spacers, or the reduction of the insulation’s R-value needs to be calculated. This can get very tricky and is very hard to get a correct answer, so as a service to the entire building industry, we provide a completely-free roof insulation compression calculator! The underlying algorithms have been adapted from the raw data plots from CSIRO research papers & the whole calculator is as accurate as we could make it (Regression Coefficient >0.9992). If you can’t get your insulation’s compression performance from the manufacturer (and many can’t supply it), our calculator is a great substitute.

In a Verification Method JV3 assessment, not all elements have to comply with DTS in order to achieve a Building Solution. So long as the Annual Energy Consumption for the proposed building is less than the Reference Building, that’s considered an acceptable Building Solution & it complies. Even if the proposed artificial lighting & air-conditioning don’t comply with DTS — it’s all about the Annual Energy Consumption of the whole building, not individual elements!

This can be used to create solutions that would never comply with DTS to obtain a certain architectural look, for example a building having a very large glazed area but offsetting this with increased wall & ceiling insulation. A JV3 Assessment can also be used to obtain significant construction cost savings. For example, if you have better-than-average glazing this means you can get away with reducing (or in some cases even eliminating) your wall insulation, so long as the Annual Energy consumption is still less than the Reference Building’s Annual Energy consumption. We’ll be providing another article soon about the construction cost savings between DTS & JV3 Building Solutions. Sign up for our free Newsletter to receive a copy before it hits our website, along with other regular hints, tips & guides.

Quality is Important

You can have confidence in our experience and expertise. We’ve been providing energy efficiency assessment services to the construction industry for over fifteen years. During this time we’ve carried out Energy Efficiency assessments for thousands of projects, from small detached houses to large multi-residential and commercial complexes. We aim to provide the highest level of professional technical service appropriate to the task at hand, including advice for our clients on understanding what an energy efficiency assessment means and how it should be implemented. If you are interested in a Deemed-To-Satisfy, Thermal Calculation, Verification Method or Reference Building assessment for your new building, contact us for a competitive fee proposal. We deal in both Residential and Commercial work throughout Australia, from tiny 1-room house extensions to entire shopping complexes.