New User Tour

Ekotrope RATER

New User Tour [Estimated time: 20 – 30 minutes]

Welcome! Thanks for starting to use Ekotrope RATER. In order to familiarize yourself with Ekotrope, we recommend completing this tour and watching this video overview of Ekotrope RATER.

Account Basics

1.  Log In: Log into Ekotrope at https://app.ekotrope.com/ using your provided username and initial password.

2.  Set User Settings and Change Password: Choose the “Settings” option found at the top of the page. This page can be used to update settings such as your preferred display units, email address, Rater or Field Inspector ID. Navigate to the bottom of the page to update your temporary password to one you will remember.  Be sure to click “Save” to apply the changes.

Importing a Project from REM/Rate™

Should you want to use a project created in REM/Rate™ in Ekotrope, please read the following steps. To create a new project from scratch in Ekotrope, please jump to the next section.

3.  Exporting XML from REM/Rate™: *Export an existing projected rating from REM/rate™: Open a projected rating in REM/Rate™. Click “File” and find “Export Building to XML.” Save the file to your desktop or another familiar location.

*As with all your usage of REM/Rate™  software, please ensure that you abide by the terms of your license agreement with NORESCO.

4.  Importing REM/Rate™ XML to Ekotrope: From the bottom of the Project List view (click “My Projects” at the top of the page if you’re not sure you’re in this view), click “Import from REM/Rate™”. Navigate to and select the file you just exported from REM/Rate™ in the pop-up.

Creating a New Project in Ekotrope

3.  Open New Project Dialogue: On the bottom of the page, select the “New Project” option. 

4.   Input Basic Project Information: The dialogue that pops up contains fields for entering high level information about the home. The fields that need data in order to create a project are the Project Name, Zip (Weather) and an Electric rate. Changes to these values after the fact can be made in the next step of the tutorial. 

5.  Changing Project Settings: Navigate to your project list using the “My Projects” buttons located at the top of the page. Find the newly imported project in your project list and click “Open” next to the project you just uploaded (it may take a moment to appear).  Then click “Project Info” next to the photo. 

You will see three tabs: Site Info, Rating Info, and Utility Rates.

a.  The Site Info tab contains administrative information regarding your project. Here you can edit things such as the name of the project, the address, and weather zip code should you choose to change climate zones.

b.  The Rating Info tab contains information pertaining to the actual rating as well as the Ekotrope version. Note that you can select any rater from your organization as the Rater of Record, and can add additional Raters or Field Inspectors as well. You can also change what version of Ekotrope is used to calculate project data. All versions of Ekotrope are backwards and forwards compatible. For more information about which version to use, see this article. 

c.  The Utility Rates tab contains the utility rates for your project. You can choose from existing utility rates in your library, or create a new one. To view properties of the rate, click the edit button. If you click the green question mark next to the Period to open a page which explains how to input utility rates in Ekotrope in more detail. Click “Save.”

Close the Project Info tab by clicking Save or Cancel at the bottom of the Project Info screen.

6.  Open the Building Design: Ekotrope allows users to create multiple building designs to model different scenarios. Since only one design will be built, Ekotrope requires that one design be marked as the Master Design which will be at the top and designated with a blue ribbon. The Master Design must be used for Confirmed Reports and will be used for batch functions in Ekotrope.  For more information on building designs, see this help article. Open the Edit Design page by clicking the notepad to the right of the Design name. The Edit Design page is where all of the information about a home design is entered. Each tab represents a different category of inputs. Take a moment to allow the “Quick Results” on the far right to load. Note the HERS score and Annual Energy Bill are shown for convenience. For more information regarding the various features of the Quick Results tab, see this help article. 

7.  Change a Wall Assembly: Navigate to the Envelope tab, and scroll down to the sections for Walls. Find a wall, and click the “Edit” button found near the Type option for the wall, which will open up the Assembly Calculator. Note the Help button in the upper right corner of this pop-up window. This will take you to a help page dedicated to wall entries. These help buttons are often scattered throughout Ekotrope and are linked to the page you are viewing. Try to change the R value for the insulation of the largest non-adiabatic wall. Click “Save”, then click “Update” at the bottom of the Quick Results section on the right. Notice that the HERS score and savings will update as you edit. 

8.  Switch the Mechanical Equipment: Find and click the “Mechanical” tab located at the top of the page. In the same way you edited the wall, edit the heating equipment type by clicking “Edit” and then changing “Equipment Type” in the dropdown (from Furnace/AC to Heat Pump, or vice versa). Notice that the available inputs may change with different Equipment Types. Should you have any questions on this (or any) page, try clicking the help button at the top right. Once you are done editing the heating equipment, save or cancel.

9.  Indicate that a Blower Door Test has been Performed: Find the “Infiltration” tab. Under “Measurement Type,” change the drop down to “Blower-door tested.” Notice here that you can change the Infiltration Unit to ones of your liking.

Project Analysis and Reports

10.  Determine the Worst-Case Orientation: In the same editing interface, click the “Find Worst Orientation” button at the bottom of the page. This opens a dialogue which should take a few moments to load. Once complete, it will show you a handful of window orientations along with the HERS score and MBtu consumption. The rotation with the highest impact will be shown in red. Clicking the rotate button will change the orientation of the windows to this. Rotate the windows to the Worst Case Orientation then navigate to the Fenestration tab. Notice the window orientation has changed from their original values. 

11.  Run QA Checks: The Compliance Tab of the Quick Results section will show you a list of automated QA checks for multiple compliance paths. Scroll down the list of paths until you find the HERS path. Click the blue box next to it to expand a list of HERS related QA checks. Any results that aren’t green will have a short explanation of what might be wrong. Some checks are optional (e.g., ceiling height) where some checks will result in errors (e.g., blower door test has not been performed). 

12.  Find Area Information: In the “Quick Results” bar (on the far right) click the Areas tab. Here you can find various useful information such as the total window area.

13. Save Your Work! We recommend that you save your work at a minimum of these three key points:

• In the middle of large sets of changes. If you are making many changes to a project, we recommend that you save a few times in the middle of these changes. This would be to prevent losing large quantities of work in the event something happens (computer dies, power goes out, etc).
• At the end of the day. If you want to leave a project open overnight, maybe to remember where you left off for the next day, just make sure to save your project. We push updates to Ekotrope every night to ensure we are always providing the most up-to-date rating software possible. In rare instances, this can result in the need to refresh your page when you get in the next morning. If you have unsaved changes, then you might lose some of that work.
• When the project is done. This one is fairly obvious but can't hurt to bring up again; don't forget to save your work when everything is said and done!

14.  Print Reports: Click “Save and Close” at the bottom of the editing interface. Hover over the large yellow “Reports” button; click “Projected.” Check all relevant reports. Click “Ok.” You can digitally sign all reports by clicking “Sign All Reports”. If you would like to add your signature to Ekotrope, fill out the PDF in this help article and send it to support@ekotrope.com. Reports can be downloaded as PDFs by clicking the “Download Reports” button. For Raters, this will only work once a project has been shared with a Provider via the Submit Project button. 

15. Questions Going Forward: If you have questions as you navigate through Ekotrope, please feel free to search our help documentation (remember, relevant help articles will be accessible in Ekotrope by selecting the help button at the top right of the screen). If you still have questions, please use the “Contact Support” button located at the bottom of the screen. Now that you have completed this training exercise, we hope that you enjoy Ekotrope and all it has to offer. 

16. Application Availability: The application may be unavailable from 4 - 5am ET. This is when updates are deployed to our application servers which causes some down-time. Occasionally we will also schedule maintenance where the application will be unavailable. This will not be done during US business hours and it will be communicated ahead of time. And like all cloud services the application occasionally has periods of down-time or unusually slow performance. We do our best to minimize these periods and will communicate with users about them as necessary.