One-dimensional turbulence (ODT) is used to model and simulate the buoyant turbulent flow in a vertical slot. ODT reproduces available Direct Numerical Simulation results on the Rayleigh number dependence of wall heat transfer and of other flow properties of interest. Extended ranges of Rayleigh and Prandtl numbers are investigated with ODT to explore the broader behavior of the flow, focusing on its connection to classical scaling arguments. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.