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FAQ

The file FAQ BERS Pro.pdf replaces the information on this webpage which was starting to become rather cumbersome.

Although this document is called FAQ, (Frequently Asked Questions) some of the questions have only been asked once but may be of interest to others. Many have been paraphrased and have had the grammar and spelling corrected.

Answers to most of these questions are covered in the current training course. The 1 day transition course from BERS4.1 to BERS4.2 will be useful for those who did their training some time ago and who will not have trained in using some of the newer additions to the software. The Help Desk is not provided as an alternative to assessors going along to the courses we have designed that deal with these issues.

Help is only available on the use of the BERS software. We cannot answer questions relating to improving a particular design to achieve a higher star rating.

If you have a problem please do the following before asking for assistance from the Help Desk:

  • Use the Help/Information button at the top of each window.
  • Consult your user manual.
  • Check to see if your question appears in this document. Use the Search function in Acrobat to search for key words to reduce reading time.

 

Latest Issues

  • Please don’t send the same question to both Solar Logic and SmartRate. To avoid doubling up answering the same question we have decided to ignore the question entirely.
  • The approved NatHERS engine (CHENATH 2.13) has a bug in it which manifests itself when modelling permanent openings. You must change permanent openings to doors when using CHENATH 2.13 otherwise you will get problems such as different simulation results between the first and second simulation. If you want to model permanent openings you must use CHENATH 2.20 which creates the BERS Certificate, not the NatHERS Certificate.
  • A project may not simulate if you have modelled an opening that is wider than the ceiling height. This is due to the CHENATH engine erroneously issuing an error message and stopping. You can avoid this by modelling more than one opening.
  • The underfloor space below cantilevered upper floors should be modelled as "Totally Open" to avoid errors.
  • There have been some reports of difficulties printing the NatHERS certificate with 64 bit OS (Win7). This appears to be related to 32/64 bit driver compatibility (or lack of). A way around this is to generate a pdf and print this-but Adobe doesn't seem to work.Cutepdf writer is available from www.cutepdf.com and is a free download. If you are running a Windows Vista or Windows 7 machine you can use Windows XPS Document Writer. So the procedure is to generate the certificate then select Microsoft XPS Document Writer or Cute pdf Writer as the “Printer”. The file can then be located and printed or sent off to a client.
  • The NatHERS certificate will probably change soon and I will revisit the printing issues. For now, if you are completely stuck just use the Prt Scr key on the keyboard to put the whole desktop onto the clip board. Open Paint and Paste. Cut the certificate and Paste into Word. Scale in the Word document and Print the page.
  • If the status bar and scroll bars don’t show up and the windows get cut off the problem lies with the graphic settings. At some stage your settings for icon size may have been changed from their default values. Right click on your desktop. Select Properties>Settings>Advance>General Change DPI Settings to normal size (96 DPI). If you are using a very high resolution screen you will need to experiment with the DPI settings. There have been 3 instances reported where nVidia GeForce graphics cards in laptops have failed to display BERS Pro correctly so if you are purchasing a new laptop it would be prudent to load and test the BERS software before buying the laptop. If you don't have a copy of BERS to test download (the now outdated) demonstration version. Remember you must install and run the software in administrator mode under Vista and Win7.