Demonstration of compliance with the Texas
Building Energy Conservation Design Standard
involves completion of a summary checklist for each
of its sections. This manual checking is tedious.
Furthermore, no comprehensive documentation of the
user's compliance is provided and the compliance
checker must manage the data collected. To assist
designers in complying with the Standard and to
reduce the time required, the Center for Energy
Studies (CES) at the University of Texas at Austin
has developed an expert system to serve as both the
compliance procedure and its documentation. This
expert system directs the user with queries (screen
menus), prompting the user for all relevant
information. A graphical user interface has been
developed to facilitate quick navigation through the
Standard, easy data entry, and identification of
compliance failures. This paper describes the research
approach to the expert system, the system features,
current status of project, and the benefits to be derived
from this innovative compliance tool
