Pipes and ducts — BimCraft help

What you'll do

Draw the pipes and ducts of a building the way you draw walls: click the corners of a run's centre line at the height you set. BimCraft makes the fittings, puts each part in its system and connects them, so other programs read the run as one connected system.

Draw a pipe

Turn on Draw, open Build and choose Pipe.
In the bar, pick the system (cold water, hot water, sanitary drain, gas…). It sets a usual material: copper for water, PVC for drains and vents, steel for heating, chilled water, gas and fire protection. Change the material, class and size if you need to. Sizes and walls come from public standards: steel pipe ASME B36.10M, copper tube ASTM B88, PVC ASTM D1785 and PEX ASTM F876.
Set At: the height of the pipe's centre line above the level.
Click where the pipe starts, then each corner. Double-click, or press ReturnEnter, at the last point. DeleteBackspace takes back the last corner; EscEsc drops the run.

The pipe snaps like walls do, and to other runs: start on a pipe's end to carry on from it, or end on a pipe's line to branch off it. A new run takes the height of the pipe it snaps to.

Draw a duct

Choose Duct. Pick the system (supply, return, exhaust or outside air) and the shape: round, rectangular or flat oval.
Type the width and height (a round duct's width is its diameter), and At for the centre line's height.
To size it from the airflow, type the Airflow and the Friction rate and click Size it. The duct is sized by equal friction, the method in the duct design chapter of the ASHRAE Handbook, and rounded up to a stocked size, so the friction comes out at or under the rate you typed. With no rate typed it uses 0.08 in. of water per 100 ft (0.8 Pa/m). A rectangular duct keeps the height you typed and gets a width; BimCraft says so when its sides are more than 4 to 1.
Click the corners as for a pipe.

The fittings, made for you

Where	What BimCraft makes
A run turns	An elbow. Steel pipe at the long radius of ASME B16.9 (1.5 × the size), other pipe at one outside diameter, round duct at 1.5 diameters, rectangular duct at one width (or one height for a turn up or down)
A run ends on another run's line	A tee; the other run is split there
Two runs meet end to end at different sizes	A reducer (pipes) or a transition (ducts)
Two runs of one size meet end to end at an angle	An elbow

When you change, move or delete a run, every fitting on that level is made again. If a leg is too short for the fittings at its ends, BimCraft says so and changes nothing: move the corner further away.

Risers

While drawing, type a new height in At and press ReturnEnter: the run goes straight up or down at the last corner, with an elbow at each end. A riser can go up into the level above. Each level shows the parts of a run its view range reaches, with UP or DN at the riser.

Drains and their slope

Sanitary and storm drains start at the smallest slope the International Plumbing Code allows for their size: 1/4 in. per foot up to 2-1/2 in., 1/8 in. per foot from 3 to 6 in., 1/16 in. per foot from 8 in. Type another slope in the bar or in Properties: 1/4"/ft, 2 % or 1:50. The run falls from its first point, so draw drains in the direction they flow. The plan shows the fall and an arrow. Properties warns when a drain is flatter than the code's minimum.

Valves

Choose Valve and the kind: gate, ball, globe or check.
Click on a pipe where it goes. The pipe is cut round it and the valve is connected to both sides.

Properties of the run lists its valves, each with Remove.

Change a run

Pick any part of a run, in the plan or the 3D view. In Properties:

System, Material, Class and Size (pipes), or Shape, Width, Height (ducts).
Height above the level moves the whole run up or down.
Slope (pipes).
Flow with Size it: for water, the smallest size that keeps the water at 8 ft/s (2.4 m/s), or 5 ft/s (1.5 m/s) for hot water. For ducts, the velocity and friction rate of the duct as drawn. Drains are sized by fixture units, which BimCraft does not do yet: pick their size yourself.

Each change is one step of Undo. fn DeleteDelete removes the whole run.

Plans

Pipes smaller than 150 mm (about 6 in.) are drawn as one line on their centre line, larger pipes and all ducts as two lines at their width.
Each system has its own colour; the plan PDF prints them in black.
Each run is labelled with its size and system (for example 2" CW or 16×10 SA).
A plan's view range decides which runs it shows, and Shown in this plan can leave out Pipes or Ducts: see Views, view ranges and your own sheets.

Schedules and the takeoff

The Schedules panel adds Pipes (by system, material and size, with their lengths), Ducts (by system, shape and size, with lengths and the outside surface area) and Fittings and valves (by kind and size, counted). Click a row to pick what it lists; Download CSV downloads it.

Takeoff takes the runs along to TakeoffCraft: pipe and duct by size as runs drawn on the plan (sloped drains measured along their slope), fittings and valves counted where they are: see Send the model's quantities to TakeoffCraft. Risers are left out of that sheet, because a plan cannot measure them; the Pipes schedule has their length.

In the IFC file

Each run is an assembly holding its parts: pipe and duct segments, fittings and valves, each with its type, material, a colour for its system and its ports. Touching ports are connected, and every part belongs to its distribution system (IFC2X3 files get the same as flow segments, fittings and controllers in a system). Other programs that read IFC systems see one connected run per system. The run's own definition is kept with it, so BimCraft makes it again the same way when you change it.