Piping

Overview

Piping draws pipework in CadCraft. You click the centerline of a run, and it draws the pipe at its real size for steel, copper, PVC or PEX, by nominal size from public standard tables, with elbows, reducers and tees, valves, a slope for drains, a solid on the 3D tab and a line in a pipe and fitting schedule. The schedule can go to TakeoffCraft. The add-on also checks drain slope against the plumbing code's least slope and works out flow and pressure loss in a water supply network. It is a drafting aid: it does not choose a pipe for a pressure, temperature or flow.

Who it’s for

• Plumbing and mechanical designers: supply, drain and process pipework drawn on plans, at size.
• Drafters: pipe runs with fittings, valves and a schedule that stays current as the drawing changes.
• Estimators: pipe lengths, steel weights and fitting counts for TakeoffCraft.
• Designers checking a water supply: flow, velocity and pressure lost to each fixture.

What you can do

• Draw a pipe run with PIPE. Type M for the material and Z for the size (for example 2, 1-1/2 or DN50). Every corner gets an elbow.
• Branch from a run by starting the next run on it; a tee is placed where it meets the centerline.
• Put a valve on a run with VALVE.
• Slope a run in Properties, Pipe run, Slope (inches per foot in an imperial drawing, a percent in a metric one). A sanitary or storm drain drawn without a slope is checked against the least slope of the International Plumbing Code (2021, Table 704.1).
• Put the pipe and fitting schedule on the sheet with PIPESCHED. Its totals and any drains that are too flat are shown on the command line.
• Export the pipe schedule as CSV with EXPORT, then Pipe schedule (CSV).
• Export a PDF with the takeoff inside for TakeoffCraft, with EXPORT, then Pipes for TakeoffCraft; or the same items as a trade pack (Pipe assemblies for TakeoffCraft).
• Work out flow, velocity and pressure lost to each fixture on a supply network with PIPENET. Its results can be exported as CSV (EXPORT, then Supply network).

Methods and standards

Sizes and walls: ASME B36.10M for steel (NPS 1/8 to 24, Schedule 40 and 80); ASTM B88 for copper water tube (types K, L and M); ASTM D1785 for PVC (NPS 1/2 to 12, Schedule 40 and 80); ASTM F876 for PEX tubing (SDR 9). The long-radius 90 degree elbow of ASME B16.9 sets the bend of steel elbows. Steel weight is the plain-end weight of ASME B36.10M, 10.69 x (D - t) x t pounds per foot. Drain slope: the International Plumbing Code (2021), Table 704.1. Supply network: friction loss by Hazen-Williams, fittings, and the climb or fall of the pipe.

Data and sources

The pipe tables are part of the add-on, so standard sizes need nothing from you. The PIPENET demand curve from fixture units to flow is a labelled example until you enter the curve of the code in force in the engine's settings. Fitting losses in PIPENET are rounded defaults. Pipe sizes and specs for a project are the designer's to choose.

Verification

The add-on's Node tests in public_html/assets/apps/cadcraft/dev/addons/piping/test/ (test.mjs, t-pipenet.mjs, t-takeoff.mjs, t-addon.mjs). Run on 2026-10-29: test.mjs 140 passed, 0 failed. They assert the NPS 2 Schedule 40 sizes (2.375 in outside diameter, 0.154 in wall) and the steel weight formula. Not yet checked against a reference case beyond these tests.

Limits

Not built yet: risers (a run stays in plan with one slope; draw a vertical run as separate runs); pipe sizing from flow, pressure drop or fixture units, and hanger spacing; stainless steel, cast iron, ductile iron, CPVC, HDPE and metric copper to EN 1057; joints and insulation in the schedule; valves on the 3D tab (the solid is the pipe); branches that follow their main when it moves; isometric drawings (those are in the Plant add-on in BimCraft). PIPENET ignores loops and does not size pipes. The words of the add-on come in English until the next language update.

Files and formats

Reads and writes DWG and DXF. A pipe run and a symbol are block references with their data kept under the application name CC_PIPING, so pipework opens in other CAD programs as drawn. Solids are ordinary 3D groups on the 3D tab. Writes the pipe schedule as CSV, a PDF with the takeoff for TakeoffCraft, and a pack file for Library, Trade packs. Writes the supply network as CSV.

Get started

1. Open Settings, General, Add-ons and switch on Piping.
2. Type PIPE, then M and Z to choose the material and size, and click the points of the run. Press Enter to finish.
3. Type PIPESCHED and click where the schedule goes.

Languages

The text is available in:

• Afrikaans (af)
• Amharic (am)
• Arabic (ar)
• Azerbaijani (az)
• Belarusian (be)
• Bulgarian (bg)
• Bengali (bn)
• Bosnian (bs)
• Catalan (ca)
• Czech (cs)
• Danish (da)
• German (de)
• Dhivehi (dv)
• Greek (el)
• English (en)
• Spanish (Spain) (es-ES)
• Spanish (Mexico) (es-MX)
• Estonian (et)
• Persian (fa)
• Finnish (fi)
• Filipino (fil)
• French (fr)
• Galician (gl)
• Guarani (gn)
• Hebrew (he)
• Hindi (hi)
• Croatian (hr)
• Hungarian (hu)
• Armenian (hy)
• Indonesian (id)
• Icelandic (is)
• Italian (it)
• Japanese (ja)
• Georgian (ka)
• Kazakh (kk)
• Khmer (km)
• Korean (ko)
• Kyrgyz (ky)
• Lao (lo)
• Lithuanian (lt)

Works in

Comes with

Adding it brings these too. Engines are shared: each downloads once for every add-on that uses it.

Needed by: Clinical and hospital engineering, Data center and mission-critical facilities, Fire sprinklers, Mechanical (HVAC) engineering, Oil and gas (upstream, pipelines), Piping and plant design, Plant 3D, Plumbing and fire protection.

Permissions

• Adds commands
• Adds toolbar buttons and menu items
• Adds a panel section
• Adds settings
• Adds its own objects and data to drawings
• Opens or saves its own file types

From its manifest. Shown again when an update changes them, and the update waits for your yes.

Versions

Licence and maker

CadCraft (CadCraft, first-party). Licence: Apache-2.0. Dependencies carry their own licences, listed on their pages.