Example of working with zone in buildings

This notebook is an introduction to working with zone data in the preheat_open toolbox.

from preheat_open import set_logging_level, test
set_logging_level("WARNING") # prevent annoying info logs from printing
from preheat_open.building import Building

2022-03-18 11:22:28,351  INFO      api                               Loading config from /home/ask/.preheat/config.json                                                                                                                .(api.py:126)

We load the API test location

b = Building(2756)
print(b)

Building(2756): API test location - TEST

While Preheat units describe the “moving parts” of a building structure, the zones describe the physical layout of the building. To get a list of the zones of a building we call its zones attribute

b.zones

[Zone(Zone_A), Zone(Zone_B)]

Every zone has as unique id given by the id attribute

z = b.zones[0]
z.id

4829

We can use the zone id when querying zones from the building by providing a list of ids to the get_zones method which returns a list of zones.

b.get_zones([z.id])

[Zone(Zone_A)]

To learn about the type of a zone we use the get_type method which returns the type of the zone, e.g. ‘stairway’, ‘corridor’ or ‘bathroom’, and its dryness, i.e. ‘dry’, ‘wet’ or ‘?’ (for unknown dryness)

z.get_type()

('stairway', 'dry')

Navigating zones

Zones are a description of the physical layout. And the zone objects can tell us information about themselves, such as whether one of their walls face the outside (has_external_wall attribute) or list their adjacent zones (adjacent_zones attribute).

print(f"The zone {z.name} has an external wall:", z.has_external_wall)
print(f"The adjacent zones of {z} are:", z.adjacent_zones)

The zone Zone_A has an external wall: True
The adjacent zones of Zone(Zone_A) are: [4832]

A zone can have sub-zones that give an even more detailed description of the building (these can again have sub-zones ad nauseam). Note that sub zones are identical to zones (they are instances of the same class) there is no difference in behaviour or functionality.

print("sub zones of a zone:\n\t", z.sub_zones)
sub = z.sub_zones[0]
print("sub zones of a sub zone of a zone:\n\t", sub.sub_zones)

sub zones of a zone:
         [Zone(Zone_A1), Zone(Zone_A2)]
sub zones of a sub zone of a zone:
         [Zone(Zone_A1A)]

If we want a speficic sub zone for which we have the ID we can use get_sub_zones.

new_sub = z.get_sub_zones([sub.id])[0]
print("Did we get the correct sub zone?", ("YES" if new_sub == sub else "NO!"))

Did we get the correct sub zone? YES

For a given zone we can find its parent zone using the get_parent_zone method

parent = z.sub_zones[0].get_parent_zone()
print("Is the parent of z's subzone z itself?", ("Yes!" if parent.id == z.id else "No!"))

Is the parent of z's subzone z itself? Yes!

Finding the units of a zone

Zones usually have associated units, such as secondary heating or indoor climate units. Using the get_units method we can query for the units of a given type, such as secondaries. The optional boolean flag sub_zones (defaults to True) tells the method whether to recursively query sub zones or not.

print("Units coupled to the zone itself:", z.get_unit_types(sub_zones=False))
print("Units coupled to the zone and sub zones:", z.get_unit_types())

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
AttributeError                            Traceback (most recent call last)
/tmp/ipykernel_16425/3029097866.py in <module>
----> 1 print("Units coupled to the zone itself:", z.get_unit_types(sub_zones=False))
      2 print("Units coupled to the zone and sub zones:", z.get_unit_types())

AttributeError: 'Zone' object has no attribute 'get_unit_types'

Say we are interested in a list of all the indoor climate units connected to the zone we use get_units (with the sub_zones flag working similarly to before)

print("Indoor climate units coupled to the zone itself:", z.get_units("indoorClimate", sub_zones=False))
print("Inddoor climate units coupled to the zone and/or sub zones:", z.get_units("indoorClimate"))

Finding the zone of a unit

Next we wish to consider a unit and determine its associated zone(s). Consider an arbitrary indoor climate unit and list its associated zone id(s)

ic = b.query_units("indoorClimate")[0]
ic.zone_ids

These can then be called from the building using the get_zones method.