Can AutoMEP draw a power plan with receptacles and homeruns?
Yes. Ask for the devices and the panel in the same sentence, for example "add duplex receptacles around the Living room and the Kitchen with a homerun back to a new panel in the Laundry room".
What you get back: the standard duplex receptacle symbol, a circle against the wall with two parallel lines, spread along the walls of each room you named and kept out of doorways and clear of each door's swing. Dashed lines on your plan, like a beam or a slab edge above, aren't treated as walls, so nothing gets mounted on them. The receptacles in a room are wired together, and the homerun runs back to a new panel around walls and furniture rather than straight across the room, with an arrow at the panel and a circuit call-out on it, for example LP-1-1, 20A/1P. Call-outs and the panel name are placed clear of the text already on your drawing, so they don't sit on top of a room name or a door note.
Switches, lights and panels: these get their plan symbols too, not a box with a word in it. A switch is the letter S on a short line from the wall (S3 for a three-way, SD for a dimmer), a ceiling light is a circle with an X, a recessed 2x4 or 2x2 fixture is drawn with its lamps, and a panel is the panelboard symbol, half filled. Ask for "a switch in every room" or "a ceiling light in each bedroom" and each goes where it belongs: a switch beside the door you walk in through (not the closet or bathroom door), a light in the middle of the room. Doors are read from door blocks, or from the openings in the walls when a plan draws its doors as gaps. A room with no door found gets its switch on a wall near its name, and if no clear spot is found at all the job's notes say which rooms were left without one.
On the right layers: receptacles on
It also works on what is already there: "add two spare breakers to panel L1", "circuit the new lights back to LP-2". If your drawing already contains receptacle or switch blocks, AutoMEP places those rather than drawing its own symbols, so the sheet stays consistent with the rest of your set. If your project uses your office's CAD standard, its receptacle and switch symbols come first for new devices.
Lights that are already drawn: ask AutoMEP to wire them, for example "wire the lights to junction boxes, then the junction boxes to the ADP panel". It finds the lights already in your drawing, whether they're blocks or symbols drawn with plain lines, and leaves them where they are. The lights in each room go to a junction box in that room, the boxes are grouped into circuits, and each circuit gets a homerun to the panel with its circuit tag. The wiring goes on its own lighting layers, in a color that stands apart from the lights.
Receptacle spacing: when your project uses the NEC, AutoMEP spaces receptacles to NEC 210.52. It does the same when a project has no codes picked and the drawing is in feet and inches. In living rooms, family and dining rooms, bedrooms, dens and kitchens, no point along a wall is more than 6 feet from a receptacle, measured along the wall, so each room gets as many as it needs. Kitchen counters get their own receptacles, none more than 24 inches from any point on the counter, split at the sink and the range and fed by two small-appliance circuits. Kitchen islands and peninsulas get one receptacle for their first 9 square feet and one for every 18 square feet after that, and a peninsula gets one at its outer end. Each bathroom basin gets a receptacle on the wall within 3 feet of it, a hallway 10 feet or longer gets at least one, and a foyer over 60 square feet gets one on each wall space 3 feet or wider. A short note beside the panel gives the code's maximum receptacle heights. Kitchen, dining, bathroom, laundry and garage receptacles go on 20 amp circuits of their own, apart from the other rooms, and are marked GFI where the code asks for it. On other projects, say how many you want per room.
Circuit sizing follows NEC practice for general purpose branch circuits. The layout is a starting point for your review, not a load calculation.
What you get back: the standard duplex receptacle symbol, a circle against the wall with two parallel lines, spread along the walls of each room you named and kept out of doorways and clear of each door's swing. Dashed lines on your plan, like a beam or a slab edge above, aren't treated as walls, so nothing gets mounted on them. The receptacles in a room are wired together, and the homerun runs back to a new panel around walls and furniture rather than straight across the room, with an arrow at the panel and a circuit call-out on it, for example LP-1-1, 20A/1P. Call-outs and the panel name are placed clear of the text already on your drawing, so they don't sit on top of a room name or a door note.
Switches, lights and panels: these get their plan symbols too, not a box with a word in it. A switch is the letter S on a short line from the wall (S3 for a three-way, SD for a dimmer), a ceiling light is a circle with an X, a recessed 2x4 or 2x2 fixture is drawn with its lamps, and a panel is the panelboard symbol, half filled. Ask for "a switch in every room" or "a ceiling light in each bedroom" and each goes where it belongs: a switch beside the door you walk in through (not the closet or bathroom door), a light in the middle of the room. Doors are read from door blocks, or from the openings in the walls when a plan draws its doors as gaps. A room with no door found gets its switch on a wall near its name, and if no clear spot is found at all the job's notes say which rooms were left without one.
On the right layers: receptacles on
E-POWR-WALL, wiring on E-POWR-CIRC, circuit numbers on E-POWR-CNMB and panels on E-POWR-PANL, per the AIA and NCS National CAD Standard, or on your own CAD standard's layers when your project uses one.It also works on what is already there: "add two spare breakers to panel L1", "circuit the new lights back to LP-2". If your drawing already contains receptacle or switch blocks, AutoMEP places those rather than drawing its own symbols, so the sheet stays consistent with the rest of your set. If your project uses your office's CAD standard, its receptacle and switch symbols come first for new devices.
Lights that are already drawn: ask AutoMEP to wire them, for example "wire the lights to junction boxes, then the junction boxes to the ADP panel". It finds the lights already in your drawing, whether they're blocks or symbols drawn with plain lines, and leaves them where they are. The lights in each room go to a junction box in that room, the boxes are grouped into circuits, and each circuit gets a homerun to the panel with its circuit tag. The wiring goes on its own lighting layers, in a color that stands apart from the lights.
Receptacle spacing: when your project uses the NEC, AutoMEP spaces receptacles to NEC 210.52. It does the same when a project has no codes picked and the drawing is in feet and inches. In living rooms, family and dining rooms, bedrooms, dens and kitchens, no point along a wall is more than 6 feet from a receptacle, measured along the wall, so each room gets as many as it needs. Kitchen counters get their own receptacles, none more than 24 inches from any point on the counter, split at the sink and the range and fed by two small-appliance circuits. Kitchen islands and peninsulas get one receptacle for their first 9 square feet and one for every 18 square feet after that, and a peninsula gets one at its outer end. Each bathroom basin gets a receptacle on the wall within 3 feet of it, a hallway 10 feet or longer gets at least one, and a foyer over 60 square feet gets one on each wall space 3 feet or wider. A short note beside the panel gives the code's maximum receptacle heights. Kitchen, dining, bathroom, laundry and garage receptacles go on 20 amp circuits of their own, apart from the other rooms, and are marked GFI where the code asks for it. On other projects, say how many you want per room.
Circuit sizing follows NEC practice for general purpose branch circuits. The layout is a starting point for your review, not a load calculation.
More in MEP Operations
Did this answer your question? If not, contact support and send us the drawing.