H2X Product Update – 1.7.13

Product update version 1.7.13 was released on January 14th 2022 and includes a number of improvements to the efficiency, usability, and design capabilities of H2X.

Rheem Hot Water Plant

Sizing and specifying the hot water plant is an important and challenging part of a design. A range of challenges to consider in the design are:

• Space limitations in the area provided by the architect
• The availability of electrical supply
• The hot water consumption of the building
• Gas requirements and the termination of the exhaust flues
• The energy efficiency of the hot water plant

To simplify this process and allow engineers to compare a range of options, H2X has partnered with Rheem to integrate their hot water plant sizing and selection into the design software.

You can choose from a range of their products that includes:

• Continuous flow gas heaters
• Tankpak (continuous flow gas heaters combined with a range of storage tanks)
• Heavy-duty electric heaters (with built-in storage)
• Air to Water Heat Pumps (combined with a range of storage tanks)

The selection is based on years of data that Rheem has collected on hot water consumption and numerous other factors such as:

• The peak flow rate of the hot water system
• The inlet and outlet flow system temperatures (Delta T)
• The ambient air temperature
• Electrical limitations
• Gas requirements
• Preferred storage tank size
• Space requirements

Design Warning Review Panel

Compliance with standards and product specifications is an essential part of any design.

When focusing on the bigger picture, the finer details can be accidentally overlooked. This can cause problems during the review, installation, commissioning, or certification of a design.

To help prevent this, H2X provides various types of design warnings throughout the software to catch any potential problems before the design is complete.

We have now added a review panel to assist in reviewing, resolving, and/or approving these warnings.

Improved Drawing Modifications

Whilst drawing new pipes in H2X is a simple, user-friendly process, we were made aware of inefficiencies when modifying the design layout that had already been drawn.

For an overview of the significant improvements in modifying your design layout, check out the video below that compares the improvement to how the software previously worked.

Extrapolated Peak Flow Rate Calculations

As requested by our users, we have improved the ability for using the below calculation methods by extrapolating the loading to peak flow rate conversions:

1. AS/NZS 3500

To strictly comply with AS/NZS 3500.1, your design shall have a maximum of 60 loading units in your residential building. This means that most buildings (other than domestic) can not comply.

However, AS/NZS 3500.4 contains an ‘informative’ section that provides guidance on sizing up to 5,000 loading units which are now integrated into H2X:

2. Barries Book

The limitation in Barrie’s Book is 4,000 loading units which are sufficient for most projects. However, as new projects increasingly push the limits, 4,000 loading units is sometimes not enough.

To allow our users in Australia and New Zealand to design projects of a larger size, we have extrapolated up to 10,000 loading units:

As you can see in the image below, H2X will produce an ‘Extrapolated’ warning if you have one of these calculation methods selected and the design has a flow rate in the extrapolated range.

The warning is to notify you that your design is not strictly in accordance with the chosen calculation method. As a user, you can review and approve the warning or change the peak flow rate calculation method.

New Pipe Materials

We are always adding new pipe materials and types to H2X. In our most recent update, we have added:

1. Polypropylene (PPR)

You can choose to use these pipes on new designs or select them on any existing projects that you have in H2X.

2. NZS 3501 Copper

Bug Fixes

A couple of bugs have been fixed, this includes:

1. New Flow System Toolbar

When creating a new flow system for gas or sewage systems, the water flow system toolbar was appearing and limiting some of the designs that could be completed for the new system.

This has been fixed so you will now see the correct toolbar.

2. 0-Way Fittings

When deleting fixtures from your design, 0-way fittings were being left behind that could be selected and snapped to. This was unintentional and provided no benefit to the user.

This has been fixed so 0-way fittings are no longer left behind when you delete fixtures.

Thank you for your continued feedback that allows us to improve H2X’s capabilities and user interface.

If there are any new features or improvements that you would like to see in a future update, we encourage you to share them with our development team by using the ‘Help’ button that you can find at the bottom right corner of the software.