Comprehensive Plumbing Design Course (Calcs, CAD, Revit, AI)

Act on ideas to kick off plumbing design, using music-inspired momentum to turn concepts into practical calcs, CAD, Revit, and AI solutions from the start.

Explore plumbing and drainage design for buildings, covering single, two, and three stack systems, water supply and drainage components, IPC-based pipe sizing, pumps and tanks, and Revit MEP application.

Explore the core drainage elements—air, water, and waste—and the 50–80 percent water fill rule to avoid siphoning, including gray water and storm drainage in building systems.

Visualize how a building's plumbing system delivers cold and hot water from city supply through a water heater, drains to a vented stack, and manages rainwater and sewer flow.

Explore how plumbing codes, regulations, and standards shape building drainage. Compare codes and standards with IPC and UPC, including DFU concepts.

Examine water tanks and pumps as core components of the main water supply, including underground tanks, roof tanks, and elevated systems using gravity and potential energy.

Compare constant speed and variable speed booster pumps for the main water supply, including pressure vessel, centrifugal pump basics, and irrigation applications with VFD control.

Explore plumbing and drainage components, including pipe types, fittings, welding methods, and valves. Learn about cold and hot water systems, drainage elements, and accessories such as interceptors and inspection chambers.

Learn about valves and accessories in domestic water systems, including gate and ball valves, check valves, air release valves, strainers, water meters, and water hammer arrestors for safe, controlled flow.

Learn drainage fixtures through the water closet overview, covering floor standing with exposed tanks, concealed flush tanks, wall-hung systems, squat toilets, and how the flush and siphon jet drive drainage.

Explore drainage and water supply fixtures, including lavatories, showers (tray and channel), various kitchen sinks, mop and scrap sinks, and floor drain types across residential and commercial settings.

Navigate drainage fixtures and traps, including floor, collector, trench, roof and gutter drains, planter drains, plus p-traps and s-traps, focusing on proper installation and venting to prevent odors and pooling.

Explore types of cold-water systems in buildings, from direct city supply to upper and lower tank feeds, detailing valves, tanks, fixtures, and booster pumps for adequate pressure.

Learn about centralized and decentralized hot water systems, including recirculation, thermal balancing valves, and different water heater types (electric and gas), with key components and maintenance essentials.

Explore sanitary drainage concepts, including gravity and forced building drainage, single and two‑pipe systems with roof venting, and the roles of grease interceptors, inspection chambers, manholes, and gully traps.

Learn to size water tanks by considering building type, occupancy, and supply disruption. Apply a 24-hour storage approach to a combined hotel and restaurant example.

Compute hotel and restaurant water needs for 36 hours, totaling 33,075 liters, then select two 20,000-liter BV2000 roof tanks to meet storage with ventilation space.

Learn how to size a cold-water supply network for a three-floor building using WSFU and GPM conversions, and calculate pressure losses and pipe sizes per IPC guidelines.

Learn to size hot water piping and compute hot and cold water fixture units using wsfu and diversity. Apply pressure, gpm, and pipe-size calculations for cold, hot, and main distribution.

Size underground and roof water tanks and select elevating feed and booster pumps for a ten-story building, static, residual, and friction head to ensure 48 hours of storage and pressure.

Size a sewerage drainage system using IPC 709.1 and 709.2, calculating DFU loads for lavatories, urinals, and toilets, then select pipe sizes to the main stack.

This lecture guides sizing the soil branch pipe using DFU values from IPC tables, avoids unavailable sizes, and sets a 4 inch stack with a 1/8 inch per foot slope.

Size vent pipes for soil branches using the developed length concept and IPC 906.1 to support a 28 DFU branch with a 4-inch stack vent from roof, preventing negative pressure.

Size drainage by selecting vent and pipe sizes using dfu and length, e.g., 2 inch vent for 43 dfu and 3 inch vent for 56 dfu up to 200 ft.

Learn to design and size a roof storm drainage system by dividing roofs into sub-areas, calculating rainfall flow in gpm, and selecting 4 to 6 inch pipes with scoopers.

Size sump pits and submersible pumps for basement drainage by converting dfu to gpm and calculating total dynamic head and friction losses to select appropriate components from catalogs.

Maintain vertical offsets between soil and waste pipes in a stack to prevent backflow; use a 1DN offset, an eccentric reducer with the flat side up, and 45° branch connections.

Calculate the required solvent quantities for uPVC fittings in a toilet project by counting total connections across 2, 3, and 4 inch sizes, using a PVC glue quantity calculator.

Calculate pipe support spans and spacing between pipes for horizontal and vertical configurations, using IPC 2021 guidance for polypropylene and PVC pipes.

Watch a leaky faucet dilemma unfold as a homeowner weighs fixing it yourself, replacing a washer, or hiring a plumber with quick five-minute arrival and price considerations.

Download a 30-day free AutoCAD trial from Autodesk, or students can access a one-year free full-featured AutoCAD by verifying their educational institution and uploading a school ID.

Explain AutoCAD-based design of waste and vent pipes, creating waste drain layers, drawing 50 mm waste lines from lavatories to floor drains, and detailing vent runs.

Annotate plumbing drawings in AutoCAD with layers, text, dimensions, symbols, and flow arrows, then generate pipe quantities using the TI Len Lisp.

Annotate plumbing drawings with linear dimensions and customized dim style, including millimeter suffixes. Clean the file with overkill, purge, and audit, then set up layouts, viewports, and plotting for publication.

Learn how to use the by block lisp in AutoCAD to unify colors in architectural plans and plumbing fixtures, making pipe routing clearer.

Explore three AutoCAD add-ins—detail manager, drawing purge, and total length—to organize plumbing details, purge batches without opening drawings, and measure lengths of lines, arcs, and circles.

Discover the Coins Translate AutoCAD add-in, a language translation tool that translates drawing text from Turkish to English within AutoCAD, with installation steps and version support through 2025.

Learn to automatically align text to curves in AutoCAD with the free HTC align text to curve addon, applying on pipes and adjusting offset and rotation.

Explore DWG compare in AutoCAD to identify updates between drawings, using color highlights and clouds to visualize modified sections, and export snapshots for documentation.

Demonstrate reading and designing a plumbing riser diagram for sanitary drainage, storm drain, and water supply, including fixtures, pipe sizing, venting, stacks, and AutoCAD blocks.

Discover how to pursue Autodesk AutoCAD and Revit certifications, requiring about 1200 hours of real-world experience, and verify credentials online via CertiPort and Credly with official modules and practice exams.

Learn to download and install Autodesk Revit, navigate student versus non-student free trials, and import Revit models into Forma to support sustainable, evidence-based design.

Compare BIM with CAD drafting tools, noting that BIM models in Revit carry rich properties for design and lifecycle management, while CAD remains simple drafting.

Explore Revit 2024’s home screen, recent files, and families; navigate templates, plugins, help, and forums, then start a plumbing project with the plumbing default template and set project units.

Navigate the modeling space with plan and section views, master 2D and 3D navigation, and switch among floor plans, ducts, elevations, and 3D views in Revit.

Explore essential mechanical settings for piping design, including hidden lines, view management, pipe sizing, elevations, and elbow angles, with practical steps to configure domestic cold water, sanitary, and vent systems.

Explore piping systems in Revit, choosing domestic cold water, fire protection, sanitary, and vent systems, and assign materials and colors to pipes. Pair plan and section views for accurate modeling.

Create pipe branches and rotate pipes around an axis using center of rotation, then view in section, 3d, or bx views to preview selected model parts.

Master isolating parts with the section box, mastering selection tools (Ctrl, Shift, filter), and creating parallel pipes in horizontal or vertical layouts with offsets and undo.

Learn to create basic piping networks in Revit using placeholders, convert to PVC, and route with fittings, sections, and slope; apply insulation options.

Learn to create a branch from a sloped pipe using inherit elevation and size, then load valves and PPR pipes and use trim extend to connect parts.

Learn how to download and load plumbing fixtures, insert them into a model, and place them on walls or floors with proper elevation, including toilets, lavatories, and tankless water heaters.

Learn to locate and install Revit family libraries from Autodesk, import plumbing families, and model water supply and drainage piping with view range and section tools.

Modify a plumbing family to customize components by setting a floor drain outlet to 90 mm and loading a symmetry connector of 90 mm diameter.

Enjoy a fun brain break that links Mario the plumber to practical plumbing problem solving, focusing on fixing leaks, locating the drip, and completing a first job.

Link an architectural Revit model to collaborate with the architect, then pin and copy monitor the linked model. Analyze spaces to identify toilets and other rooms for plumbing workflows.

Copy and monitor linked levels to detect architect changes, create floor plan views for each level, and coordinate ceilings and plumbing disciplines for accurate plumbing design.

Link the rivet model, organize floor and ceiling planes into plumbing, create work sets for drainage and water supply, and set up a central file for collaboration.

Open a local Revit project, adjust visibility, model drainage pipes and ducts, and run interference checks to coordinate plumbing with mechanical work and the architectural link model.

Begin hands-on modeling in Revit by building the public toilet, applying sizing results for water supply and drainage to create an accurate architectural model.

Place public toilets with a 925 mm center-to-center spacing and a 480 mm offset from the wall, then load lavatory and mixer components and verify the model in 3D.

Continue placing fixtures in Revit MEP by hosting wash basins, urinals, and toilets on real walls, adding water heater and floor drain, and grouping fixtures for easier routing.

Route the cold water supply with a 50 mm riser and a 25 mm branch to the water heater, install stop valves and 6 litre mixers, and plan drainage.

Continue building a domestic cold water system in Revit by routing pipes above ceilings, selecting 25 mm cold water piping, and connecting to the water heater with fittings and alignment.

Model a cold water distribution from the riser, install isolation valves and 25 to 20 mm branch pipes to feed toilets, urinals, and mixers, using section views and 3D view.

Model domestic hot water piping from the water heater to mixer taps in Revit, adjust sections and plan views, and set the branch pipe from 25 to 20.

Take a brain break with Pat a Mat—pause for fun—Vodovod water pipes, and enjoy the movie as part of the comprehensive plumbing design course.

Connect lavatories to the floor collector with PVC drainage pipes and 45-degree bends. Ensure first connection is 90 degrees, check clashes in 3d views, and confirm green connections.

Connect drainage pipes from wash basins to the floor collector with 1% slopes, align, and extend lines in a 3d modeling workflow to finalize a complete drainage network.

Model soil pipes from toilets, route them to a horizontal collector and vertical soil stack, set sizes and a 1% slope, and add a floor clean-out for maintenance.

Model the soil pipes and collector soil pipe for toilet drainage, ensure 1% slope with PVC 45-degree bends, align branches to the soil stack in plan and section views.

Continue routing soil drainage pipes from toilets, substituting 90-degree elbows with 45-degree bends for easier connections. Use section and 3D views, and window tiling to select, align, and connect pipes.

Learn practical drainage system design by replacing elbows with branch fittings, routing slope pipes, and integrating cleanouts in Revit, including BIM object downloads and pipe connections.

Model and route soil drainage pipes from urinals in Revit using PVC, add p-traps, load BIM objects, and align unions and fittings to connect to the soil stack.

Model soil pipes from urinals and connect them to a single collector and drainage stack, adjusting slopes, sizes, and alignments in 3d views to finalize a complete drainage system.

Copy and paste a typical public toilet from one floor to another, align to levels, and connect water supply risers for quick multi-floor assembly.