Plumbing and Heating: Water Supply, Hot Water, Radiators, Heat Pumps and Gas

Its three tools

Open **CAD tools** in the tool rail and then **Plumbing**. The group has three tools, and each has a command you can type.

**Catalogue** (`PLUMBING`): browse the trade's fittings by system, with each one's plan symbol. Picking one arms Place with it.

**Pipe** (`PIPE`): draw a run. Click each point; press Enter to finish. The run starts on the trade's usual size, and its size, system and levels are in its panel afterwards.

**Place** (`PLACEPLUMB`): put down the fitting you picked. Each fitting stands at its usual height. A valve belongs on a pipe: one placed off a pipe is listed in the Issues tab.

A run snaps to the connection points (ports) of fittings, so a pipe or a cable that starts on a fitting is joined to it. A fitting that should be connected and is not is listed in the Issues tab as not connected.

Two pipes at once

**Hot and cold** (`PAIR`): draws a cold and a hot supply side by side in one stroke.

**Flow and return** (`HEATPAIR`): draws a heating flow and its return together.

Each of the pair is its own run afterwards, so one can be moved or resized alone.

What is in the catalogue

**Cold water**: stopcocks, isolating, check and pressure reducing valves, meters and meter chambers, outside taps, manifolds, storage, break tanks, filters, softeners, cisterns.

**Hot water**: hot water cylinders, expansion vessels, mixing and thermostatic mixing valves, pressure relief valves, shower pumps, mixer taps.

**Heating**: gas boilers, air source heat pumps, radiators, convectors, underfloor heating loops, thermostatic radiator valves, pumps, zone and balancing valves, thermostats, solar thermal collectors.

**Gas and oil**: gas meters, gas cocks and taps, safety cut offs, oil meters.

Sizes and outputs

**Supply pipes**: a cold or hot pipe's panel shows the loading units behind it, the flow they ask, what its size carries and what size it needs (BS 8558).

**Radiators**: a radiator's panel shows its rated output and what it **Gives** at the flow temperature of the heat source it is on. A radiator rated 1500 W gives far less on a heat pump at 45 degrees.

**Heating pipes** are graded by the heat of the radiators behind them.

The checks

**Gas**: an appliance the gas does not reach, no meter, no isolation, or a run that loses more than 1 mbar from the meter to an appliance (BS 6891).

**Heating**: radiators that give less than their rating at the flow temperature (EN 442), a heat source too small for its emitters or emitters too small for it, underfloor heating asked for more than a floor may give (EN 1264), pipes too small for the heat behind them.

**Hot water**: dead legs too long or holding too much water before hot water arrives.

**Condensate**: a boiler's condensate pipe too small, too long, without fall or outside without lagging (BS 6798).

**Order**: valves on a supply in the wrong order.

In 3D and on paper

**3D**: runs are built as real cables, pipes and ducts at their levels, and fittings stand at their mounting heights. In 3D you can drag a run's end or its body, and it snaps to corners and to other fittings' ports.

**Through walls**: a run that crosses a wall or a floor cuts its own hole through it, and the hole moves with the run.

**Showing and hiding**: the Layers tab has a switch for each trade, and an X-ray switch that shows the services through the building.

**Sections**: a run cut by a section is drawn as its section, and the ones beyond it along their line.

**Schedules**: the Schedules tab lists runs by size, fittings by kind and boards by circuit. See [Sheets and schedules](/docs/sheets-and-schedules).

Read next

• Drainage
• Electrical
• Ventilation and air conditioning
• Checks and issues

Frequently asked questions