Reading the window columns: the engines split window gain differently — E+'s "Fenestration Conduction" includes inward-flowing absorbed solar; RIME's is pure UA·ΔT. Win Total (Solar + Conduction) is the like-for-like comparison. Roof cooling column: roof ENERGY agrees between the engines (heating components match within 4%, same U/area/α); the cooling component differs by peak-hour attribution and the exterior-film convention (RIME: fixed ASHRAE h₀=3.0 sol-air; E+: per-timestep film), with the difference absorbed by the other columns — zone totals agree. An attribution split, not missing energy.

Result: sum of room sensible cooling peaks RIME +8.1% vs EnergyPlus 25.1; design heating +5.9% (net of the slab convention, item 4, the heating gap is under +2%). Interior zones agree within −0.1% in aggregate, with every one of the 43 interior rooms inside ±1.4%, and interior design heating is zero in both engines. Heating components: exterior wall within 0.01% of E+ (30,411 vs 30,413 Btu/h), roof within 1.5%; upper-floor window totals within single digits on all four orientations; peak hours coincident. The only rooms outside ±15% are the Level-1 perimeter spaces, all traceable to the ground-sink convention (item 5). Every residual difference below is a named convention; all act in the conservative direction for RIME.

1. Inputs verified identical, room by room (59 rooms, zero discrepancies — RIME-vs-EPlus-Inputs.html): seat-count occupancy at 450 Btu/h·person (250 sensible / 200 latent); lighting and equipment W/sf per A-601 in every space type; 75/70°F setpoints; infiltration 0.05 cfm/sf of gross exterior wall in both engines; wall assembly calibrated to the governing U-0.064 (builder U-0.0634, R-13 batt with the ASHRAE 90.1 A9.2B steel-stud correction); interior floors 3" LWC on deck per F-1; roof U-0.032 α 0.55; W1 U-0.36 / SHGC 0.38.
2. Scope: commercial kitchen NIC (modeled at 75°F, excluded) and elevator shafts (unconditioned, zero loads) per G-001/A-601. Room loads exclude ventilation outdoor air; design heating takes no internal-gain credit; loads at full 24/7 intensity.
3. All interior surfaces are adiabatic in BOTH engines for this comparison — the standard single-zone loads convention (E+ reference = RLVB-adiabatic.idf: 408 interzone wall, floor and ceiling faces set Adiabatic). Adiabatic surfaces retain their thermal mass in E+ — they store and return heat to their own zone, exactly as RIME's single-zone floor/partition mass does; only the net zone-to-zone transfer (which neither convention designs to) is removed. Sensitivity: against the realistic multizone E+ run (all interzone surfaces conducting), RIME reads +8.6% cooling / +6.3% heating overall, and E+ interior rooms read 16–25% higher (≤1.1 kBtu/h absolute per room) because neighbor partition surfaces run warmer than room air and elevator lobbies border the unconditioned shafts — differences a single-zone design method deliberately excludes.
4. Slab-on-grade heating uses the ASHRAE F-factor design method, Q = F·P· (T_in − T_{design air}) — the standard sizing convention. E+'s GroundFCfactorMethod drives the slab to winter soil temperature (~46°F) and reports about one-third the loss. RIME is conservative and method-faithful.
5. Ground-coupled slab cooling (Building option, default on) uses a monthly shallow-ground temperature proxy validated within ~3°F of the SeaTac EPW 0.5 m series in the cooling months. The resulting sink is smaller than E+'s (colder soil + slab solar storage), so Level 1 glazed rooms read +30–45% on window totals — conservative.
6. Exterior film: fixed ASHRAE h₀ = 3.0 sol-air (the classic ASHRAE design-calculation convention) vs E+'s per-timestep film model. Affects the roof/wall cooling component split at the peak hour, not the energy (see roof note above); zone totals agree.
7. Infiltration heating is sensible-only at standard air density; E+'s component includes cold-air density and infiltration latent (humidification), reading ~50% higher on that line.
8. Window gain bookkeeping: RIME reports full-SHGC solar + pure UA·ΔT conduction; E+ books the inward-flowing absorbed fraction in conduction. Compare Solar + Conduction (Win Total).