Help me, O'bewon, you're my only hope.
I'm just a reasonably competent bystander, hence my call out to the experts.
The situation I'm facing is that my apartment complex has an enclosed, large (100 or so) car garage with a "lift door" at one end. (It's also got an upper level with a separate roadway entrance, and that one uses a remote controlled door).
The garage is heated to a nominal 60 or so degrees, using low pressure steam from the main powerhouse that's fed into a half dozen or so blowers. We're in NYC so this means heating is needed a decent portion of the year.
My question, and I'm hoping you'll treat me gently, is that the garage door is generally left open full time.
(There's a staffed attendant room just inside, which has its own walls, heating, and a door into the main garage).
There's got to be a huge heat loss issue here, but I'll be honest and admit I don't have the slightest clue as to how to calculate it. (I'd have no problem with working out the numbers for a wall, but I can't even guess at how to handle an opening like this).
Could anyone give me a pointer to what the figures would be? I'm just looking for a rough enough number so that I can tell the management to get a "real" one - which I'm 99 percent sure will come to teh conclusion that we'd be better off keeping the door closed, giving everyone remote controls, and even adding some more windows and tv monitors to the guard booth.
The opening is about ten feet wide by eight feet high. There are walls extending out another fifteen or so feet on each side, and the garage itself is loosely sealed masonry (cinderblock) with a bunch of vents scattered around.
In other words, there's no major breeze going through that doorway, but clearly there's lots of mixing.
(Of course when there's a big wind, etc., etc.)
Thanks for your help.