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Author:
Tom the Elder (CA)
I have several projects. I want to replace my 65 YO plumbing with two indoor water heaters with a new single, outdoor water heater system. I need to extensively modify my landscape irrigation system. And I want to draw a layout for my electrical system so I can start making upgrades; particularly some re-wiring to add grounded outlets.
For all of these things it would be really, really nice to be able to draw up one set of plans showing the existing systems and another showing the final design. Financially, hiring someone to draw plans is out of the question. I have looked around on the internet but all of the programs I have seen for drawing up plans are difficult to use, expensive, or both. Anyone have suggestions for software to draw up plans? Thanks.
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Author:
sum (FL)
I do to some extent. I am a DIYer and my day job is engineering so I do have access to CAD software for free.
If you don't want to pay for systems like AutoCAD or Microstation, try looking up Google sketchup.
When I document my "improvements" on the property I usually start with a property survey. I would scan a the survey into my CAD system as a beginning point, the scale the survey to real distances, this is because your survey is in paper scale (8.5"X11" or 11"X14" and you need to operate in real world feet and meters.
From there you can begin to measure and sketch out your interior floor plan, unless your city has a set and you can scan that in too and digitally rectify the two. You need the interior floor plan because most of what you locate would be measurements off interior and exterior walls.
I put different things on a different "layer" of the software. That way you can switch off everything and only look at electrical, or plumbing or irrigation or framing. I also don't have an "existing" as you will find out, existing is only meaningful if you are doing one major thing you can see what it was and what is now. But if you are making improvements over the year on many different things, sooner or later it gets blurred. What I do is I "date" things instead. For example I may have the "original" state in 1975 as "original 1975". Now if in 2005 I did a bathroom renovation. I would redraw the bathroom only for "Bathroom Reno 2005", and another "Garage Conversion 2012", and "New Irrigation 2013", and "Kitchen Reno 2015" etc...alternately, you can do the opposite by taking the original bathroom and move it to a "Pre 2005 Bathroom Reno", either way, you do it so that you can do back to any date say July 2011 to see what your property looked like then and you can manipulate your various layering scheme in a "timeline" to see how it progressed. It takes some careful planning if you have many projects and want a detailed record.
Another thing to consider especially on older homes, typically you don't know much about the electrical or plumbing layout. I typically only draw in what I put in, the "existing" I can only document what I know for sure like fixture locations and junction box locations.
Hope this helps.
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