The Revit MEP Faceplant

Success at last!  Something that resembles Electrical Design drawings - almost completely done in Revit!

It only took 4-5 years, 4-5 releases of Revit, 3rd party content, and considerable effort to get to the point where I can put together a very small scale project.  The fixture schedule was imported from ACAD, and the power riser diagram was modified in Revit from a detail imported from ACAD - but those were the only things I had to fall back on.

The fixture schedule doesn't sound like it will be a problem, but the riser still seems to be a sticking point.  Even the 3rd party content pack points me at a 3rd party program (SKM) for doing single-line diagrams/electrical distribution.

Now that's just fucked

Even the people who went through the trouble of figuring out Revit well enough to put together a comprehensive package of content for it have determined that it is not capable of producing power riser diagrams (or does it so badly that spending more money on software is preferable).

Every person that has tried to sell me on the 'but.. but.. it calculates panel schedules' bullshit doesn't know (or care about) the importance of having an electrical diagram that shows all of the various panels, transformers, disconnects, service entrance equipment, and the conduits/conductors that tie it all together.

I have probably seen thousands of riser diagrams in the time I have been doing electrical engineering work, and they vary widely in how easy they are to interpret.  When you go into an existing building, the existing drawings you get (if you get any) might be 20+ years old, drawn by hand, be third generation copies of copied blueprint copies (and may or may not actually bear any resemblance to what has been installed in the field - but you have to start somewhere).

Not all projects (especially renovation projects) have a budget for a complete on-site electrical survey, and in a lot of cases I'm lucky if I ever see the place (and even then only from pictures that an architect took - which are always amazingly just to the right or left of where I need to see).  Even if I get to do a site visit, it can be difficult to get everywhere that I need to get, or see what I need to see due to locked rooms (it doesn't matter how many people you contact or coordinate with - there will be a locked room that nobody seems to have a key for, and it will be a very important room), and obviously because most of the conduits/etc. are concealed in walls, ceilings, etc., and that's before you get into buildings with multiple layers of security that require you to get clearances, be escorted, etc.

Even spending a lot of time at an existing location can leave you with barely a basic understanding of how everything is tied together - especially if the building has been re-purposed several times over the years.  I have watched experienced engineers or contractors spend considerable time and effort (and expense - because we don't run a charity here) carefully go through a building, and continue to find things that challenge their assumptions (and the existing drawings).

Old schools are a good example - I have been in several that had main distribution panels that were 50+ years old.  Depending on the conditions in the electrical rooms, they can range from totally rusted out, to serviceable (although impossible to get breakers for), to heavily modified (I've seen some pretty impressive fuse holders rigged from various types of clamps.  At one location, they didn't have any way of shutting off the main power (short of having the utility to cut off power to the entire area), and when fuses blew, they literally blew - clean out of the panel.  They would have to basically jam a new one in, and pray to the deity of their choice.

Many school electrical rooms were afterthoughts - slapped onto the outside of the building, and/or sharing rooms with boilers, coal rooms, and various related equipment/pumps (I've seen at least one pump mounted directly over the MDP), with decaying walls/ceilings, some of which were basically exposed directly to the elements - or (in the worst one I've ever seen) literally start to fill with water when it rains.

Combine this with the fact that back when the distribution was sized for these buildings there was no HVAC (boiler heat and fans only), and there were no computers.  This means that as modern HVAC systems and computer labs/classroom computers/servers were added, they usually had to be scabbed on to the existing panels - leading to some fairly inventive techniques (such as tapping onto the service entrance conductors before they hit the main panel - or cramming two sets of wire into one set of lugs to feed multiple panels).

In rural areas, where the electrical inspector is probably the contractors brother or cousin, and where the money simply isn't there for expensive electrical upgrades (nobody ever wants to spend money on boring gray boxes to sit in unused rooms - school spending is almost always prioritized like this: 1) Sports programs, facilities, field lighting, uniforms, etc., 2) Better offices, equipment, etc. for administrators, 3) Literally anything else, and coming in last at 142) Education.

It's usually only when catastrophic failure occurs that anything ever gets fixed, and only upgraded if fixing it is impossible - or if money becomes available for upgrades and there is some left over after relighting the gym, sports fields, etc. - that's when we get to go out and find the panels that were scabbed on over the years, and re-feed them properly from new breakers in new distribution equipment, upsize feeders, etc..  All you know is that there are conduits going everywhere, and disappearing at the earliest convenience.  Some might not actually go anywhere anymore, or be attached to anything, but until you start pulling panel covers off, crawling into every dark, dank corner of the building, and when all else fails, turning things off, and/or ringing out wires to figure out what feed what from where, and how horribly undersized it is.

One time I sketched a riser diagram from an old hand-drawn piece of parchment that I swear had some calculations to take into account 'aether propagation'.  I took with me when I went on-site, and promptly flipped it over and drew new one completely from scratch on the back.  The drawings had obviously been little more than a 'go by', and 'as built' drawings were never done (or were not provided to me).  Even after considerable hunting, I still wasn't confident that I had it completely figured out, and it wasn't until after they had begun upgrades that a few things didn't jive (fortunately that time it was pretty simple to straighten out and didn't run into additional costs).

Anyway - I say all of this to make a point.  The power riser diagrams that I do on nearly every single project that I put out are FUCKING IMMACULATE.  Rather than putting the focus on the interiors of the panels as many people (and programs) do in order to make their diagrams look all technical - mine focus on putting as much information in as simple to read format as possible.  Mine are similar to elevations, but are purely schematical.

Starting off with a riser diagram template that somebody developed prior to my working here (or with one from a previous project that has similar equipment (generators/transfer switches/emergency panels/etc.), I can show the exterior equipment starting with a riser pole with pole or pad mounted transformer, primary and secondary conduits, meter/ct cabinet, and then start going into the building - starting with the main electrical room, and then detailing out each room that has electrical equipment in it.  The result looks sort of like an elevation - but is really more of a grid, showing multiple floors, with several equipment rooms on each, with keynotes for equipment and feeders.

In my mind, a set of software that costs as much, and gets raved about as much as Revit - when I put a panel into my drawing and start a schedule, a third thing should happen as well - that panel should show up on a riser diagram.  When I do the electrical connections to show a panel being fed out of a 480V panel via a transformer, all of that equipment should pop up in that diagram as well.  Hell, with as much as this program costs, and as much of a pain in the ass as it is, it should automatically size feeders based on the information I give the panel (and automatically upsize if the run will cause voltage drop to exceed a value that I am allowed to enter).

But then - that might actually start to be electrical design software, instead of a glorified spreadsheet program.

And we can't have that.