Our piping drawings service at OutsourceCAD runs mainly in Revit and AutoCAD, supplemented by Rhino and Inventor where the job calls for it. We always work in the latest versions of these packages and deliver in DXF, DWG, Revit formats or STEP, depending on what you need further down the line.
Piping work involves a great deal of repetition: the same coupling, the same valve, each time in a slightly different size or angle. That makes this type of drafting well suited to parametric modelling, where we model a component once and then place it in any variant you need without redrawing it.
Our drafting team consists of people with more than ten years of CAD experience, led by Sam, our team leader, who has a background of more than fifteen years in architecture. We work in our own environment with our own licences, following the standard and drawing conventions you supply, so the drawings slot straight into the ongoing project.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
The Repetitive Work in a Piping Drawings Service
If you outsource piping drawings, you are usually not handing over a single drawing but a package in which the same types of component keep coming back. A piping system typically consists of a limited number of component types, such as bends, couplings and valves, that appear in many sizes and orientations. If a drafter redraws such a component by hand every time, a large project soaks up a lot of time that really isn't necessary. AutoCAD on its own is not smart at building up components like these. If you need a valve in size 90 and then in size 110, in practice it often gets drawn twice by hand, with the risk of an error creeping in somewhere.
Our drafting team spots this pattern quickly, because piping schematics in greenhouse construction and similar technical environments are full of this kind of repetition. When we build components as smart parts, we model a valve only once as the base and then place it in every size required. That is faster, and it prevents the same mistake from repeating across multiple variants.
For you as a client, this means a large set of piping drawings does not become proportionally more expensive as the number of variants grows. We see the time savings mainly on projects with a lot of repetition, and less so on a single, unique drawing. That is why, in the first conversation, we always look at how much repetition there is in the project you supply before proposing an approach. That assessment determines whether parametric modelling pays off or whether manual drafting will do.
Parametric Working on Piping Drawings
Working parametrically means a component adapts to a new situation or a different size without anyone having to redraw it. To do this, we build parametric Revit families: smart components that we set up once and then reuse again and again. For piping drawings, this translates directly into practice. A valve that comes in different diameters is built as one smart family rather than as separate drawings for each size. If the diameter changes, the family adapts and the drawing is correct again straight away.
The material schedule follows automatically. If anything about the component changes, the schedule updates itself, without anyone having to amend it by hand. In repetitive work of this kind, that saves at least seventy percent of the time compared with drafting each variant separately by hand. Not every project starts from scratch. Sometimes there is already a family set, but it has become clogged up after years of additions without any tidying.
In that case, we first assess whether cleaning it up is enough or whether rebuilding is quicker. If an existing set is very messy, we often choose to rebuild, even though that initially feels like a bigger step. We weigh this up per project, because the state of existing libraries varies widely from client to client. A client moving from AutoCAD to this kind of parametric working often only notices after a few projects how much time it saves structurally, because the gains accumulate with every new piping schematic in which the same components recur. What matters most to you is that the drawing and the material schedule remain correct after a change, without a separate checking round afterwards.
No ongoing payroll costs and no idle staff once the peak is over. If one of our people is off sick or on holiday, we replace them and the work simply carries on.
What the Delivered Piping Drawings Include
The set we deliver consists of 2D drafting and, where needed, 3D modelling, supplemented by revisions to existing material if you supply it. We deliver files in the format you need, DXF, DWG, Revit formats or STEP, and in practice almost any common CAD format. Because we follow your drawing conventions and standard, the set ties in directly with what happens to it further down the process, whether that is a site team or the next design phase. Piping work also includes the material schedule, which follows any parametric components and therefore stays up to date automatically. If you build further on the drawings yourself, no separate conversion step is needed between what we deliver and what you use internally. The work also passes through at least three review layers before we deliver: a drafter draws, a second team member checks, Sam then reviews it as team leader, and Barry, our project manager, carries out the final check.
This keeps the number of errors to a minimum in practice, even in a set with many variants. We usually deliver by email. On larger, long-running projects, such as in greenhouse construction, we use software that you can log into to follow the progress of the project, rather than loose files going back and forth. We agree the most suitable delivery method in the first conversation, based on the size of the project. We also match the file naming structure and layer organisation to what you already use internally, so a new set of piping drawings fits straight into an existing archive.
Scaling Up Our Piping Drawings Service
A piping drawings project can vary considerably in size, from a single revision round to a complete piping schematic for a large installation. With our large, flexible team, we therefore scale up or down per project, depending on what the work requires. We do not do this by hiring someone new, but by deploying people from our existing, permanent team who already have more than ten years of CAD experience.
When things are urgent, we add extra capacity immediately, so a peak in your drawing office does not automatically lead to delays. If someone drops out due to illness or holidays, we replace that person so the project keeps running without you carrying ongoing payroll costs.
That difference from having your own permanent drafter on staff is exactly why many clients choose to outsource during a peak. We charge by the hour or per project at a fixed price, and we only bill net working hours. When a deadline could not slip, we have in practice worked through evenings and weekends, with days of fourteen to fifteen hours, to hit a delivery date.
Situations like that are not everyday business, but they show that our team can adapt when a project calls for it. If you expect a project to grow, it is best to discuss that in advance so we can have the right capacity ready in time. If a project only turns out to be larger than expected along the way, we still adjust the staffing, without you having to start a completely new process with a different team.
Frequently asked questions about our piping drawings service
Let us handle your piping drawings
Send us your documents and drawing conventions and we will let you know within one to two working days what we can take on and when.