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Revit MEP Comparison: Calculating HVAC Loads with 2D Drawings

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

(Part of our ongoing series comparing features in Revit MEP and Design Master to make it clear why our software is better.)

Let’s compare how you calculate HVAC heating and cooling load values in Design Master HVAC and Revit MEP when your architect sends you 2D drawings.

There are a lot of projects that only have 2D drawings. Most architects are not using Revit (though Autodesk would like you to believe otherwise). Any remodel you do, which is very common in the current economic climate, will at best have a set of 2D DWG files, and might only have a scanned copy of a paper plan. If you cannot handle projects that have 2D plans, you are severely limiting the type of work you can do.

On the Autodesk forums, a Revit user who asks how to handle this situation. The answer he is given is, “I wouldn’t bother using Revit with a 2D drawing.” If all you have are 2D drawings, you can’t use Revit MEP.

In Design Master HVAC, this is not a problem.  You do have to manually trace the rooms and specify exterior walls in AutoCAD with our software, but it’s pretty easy. It is the first topic that is covered in our training tutorial.

Even if you decide that Revit MEP is the future and the right product for you, what are you going to do for all the projects where the architect is not using Revit? One option is to limit yourself to new construction with architects using Revit, but that’s a pretty small market you will be chasing. Another is to get Revit MEP for the times when you can use it, but also have another system in place for the rest of your projects.

Or, you could get Design Master HVAC, which works no matter what the architect gives you. You don’t have to limit yourself to only Revit projects, and you do not have to spend your limited time and money learning and maintain two different systems. To learn more about Design Master HVAC, contact us for a free demonstration and 30-day trial.