Services (MEP)

Ten systems, real product catalogues, and fittings that appear where they belong. Drawing a run is a chain like any other Archeform tool; everything else follows from which system you are in.

The system decides almost everything

Pick a system and you get its colour, its tag, its default size, its bend radius, its set of usable angles and its IFC class — all at once.


Heating	flow, return
Water	cold, hot, circulation
Drainage	foul, rainwater
Ventilation	supply, extract
Gas

Colour comes from a material on the group and a tag of the same colour, so you can switch a whole system off in the Tags panel without touching the drawing.

Draw a run

Click MEP Run on the toolbar.
Click each point.
Double-click to finish.


← / →	corner style — elbow or sharp mitre
↑ / ↓	height above the floor (Shift for a fine step)
Tab	justification
`[` `]`	previous / next size in the catalogue
Option / Alt	suspend the angle grid
Shift	lock to an axis, including vertical

Shift locks vertically too, choosing the axis from the direction on screen — so a riser is drawn inside the chain rather than with a separate tool. There is a Riser entry in the pipe’s right-click menu as a shortcut when you just want one.

The angle grid starts from the second segment and is relative to the previous one, because what limits you is the range of available fittings, not the world axes. The first segment is free.

Drawing a pipe run

Catalogues

HT, KG, copper, PPR, steel, SPIRO and rectangular duct. Sizes come from the catalogue, with wall thicknesses, so quantities and surface areas are real. A rectangular duct accepts sizes outside the table too — type 400x250.

Start height


Floor	the first point sits at a fixed height above the storey floor
Free	inference decides — you click where it goes

Floor is right for distribution runs. Free is right when the height is set by something else, such as the outlet on a WC.

Connecting to things

Free ends of a run carry a port — a small cross of real geometry. SketchUp’s own inference reports it as an endpoint, so the Move tool grabs it and pipes meet exactly.

Library objects — sanitary ware, ventilation units — carry ports in the same format. Snapping to a port takes priority over everything, including the angle grid and the gradient, because hitting a port is always deliberate.

Fittings

Fittings appear by themselves at nodes:


Bend	segmented, with a radius from the system
Transition	between two sizes
Tee	branch, with a saddle and sockets

A bend that also changes size is one fitting, not two.

Branches are recognised even though the branch ends in the middle of the main run rather than at its endpoint. Clicking anywhere on the main pipe’s shell is enough — the end is snapped onto the axis for you.

Bend style is either smooth (fine segments, softened) or segmented (a real spiro elbow with visible seams). Radius follows the system — 0.75 × D for drainage, 1.0 × D elsewhere — and can be overridden.

Editing

Right-click a pipe → Archeform → MEP Tools: Join, Joint, Extend, Trim and Stretch, the same tools as beams, plus Riser.

The difference: a pipe joint is symmetric. Both sides of a node agree — either both get a fitting, or both are mitred. There is no main-and-secondary as there is with beams.

In plan

Per element, choose what is drawn: axis, outline, both, or auto. Auto draws an outline from 100 mm up — so drainage and ventilation get outlines while water and heating stay as single centre lines, which is how these drawings are normally read.

A vertical run becomes a circle, since a line would project to a point.

Schedule

Schedule in the MEP category. It aggregates: one row per size per system, subtotals per system — not one row per segment, which would run to hundreds.

Lengths are the real pipe length, with the parts occupied by fittings taken off. Fittings are counted separately by type, size and angle, so nothing is counted twice.

In IFC

IfcPipeSegment / IfcDuctSegment and IfcPipeFitting / IfcDuctFitting, with the type property sets. Drainage carries Pset_PipeSegmentOccurrence with the gradient derived from the run and the invert elevation.