Drawing of floor heating with Stabicad for Autocad or Stabicad LT. 

Issue:
Drawing of floor heating with Stabicad for Autocad or Stabicad LT. 

Introduction:
In Stabicad you can draw floor heating as a symbol, or you can design the floor heating completely. For the complete design of floor heating there are some tools included in Stabicad such as drawing a zig-zag loop or drawing a circular loop. These functions are especially efficient to use in rectangular or L-shaped rooms. For complex rooms such as a room with many corners or a room where the floor heating must be placed around elements (such as a cooking island) it is better to draw the floor heating manually. 

This article describes four steps and gives a number of options how to design a floor heating system. 

A. Define the number of square meters of the room.
B. Determine the number of groups to be placed in the room.
C. Roughly divide the room with polylines.
D. Draw the floor heating with one of the options below:

Option A: Place floor heating based on polyline or Rectangle.
Option B: Continue from Supply / Return pipe and fill area with floor heating.
Option C: Manual drawing of floor heating.
Option D. Place floor heating Zigzaglus.

Solution:

A. Define the number of square meters of the room.

Steps:
For Light Users: 

1. Draw a polyline (command PL). In the properties of the polyline, AREA shows square mm2 of the room. Divide the number by 1.000.000 for the area in m2.

For PRO Users:

1. Draw a room line . StabiTOOLS > Room definitions > Draw room line .
2. You can now immediately see the number of square meters.

Tip: 
With the BPOLY command you can quickly draw a polyline. One condition of this function is that you click within a closed area.
B. Determine the number of groups to be placed in the room.

Floor heating is usually laid with a center-to-center distance of 100 or 150 mm.

• Center to center distance 150 mm, for 1 m2 of floor space about 7 to 8 meters of pipe is required. 
• A center to center distance of 100 mm,  for 1 m2 of floor space about 10 meters of pipe is required. 

Maximum length of a group is usually 100 to 120 meter.

Example:

• Floor heating is installed in a room of 40 m2 with a pipe spacing of 100 mm and a maximum pipe length of 120 m. 
• 40 m2 > 400 m pipe. 400/120 = 3.3. This is more than 3, so 4 groups are placed in this room. 

C. Roughly divide the space with polylines.

1. Create a separate layer in AutoCAD and give it a logical name. (e.g. Floor heating groups). 
2. Use command PL (polyline) to draw a polyline. In the properties of AutoCAD (CTR+1), check AREA of this polyline approximately meet the conditions as defined in step B. 

D. Draw the floor heating with one of the options below:

Option A: Place floor heating based on polyline or Rectangle.

1. Set the snap and grid settings correctly. See tip 1: GRID Settings. 
2. Click on palette Heating/Cooling > Floor heating tab > Place Floor heating
3. Choose Rectangle or Polyline, Circular loop, and choose a center to center distance for the pipes. Then draw the loop. The connection points of the loop are placed where you first click in the screen.
4. The loop should now be connected to the line. Click on palette Heating/cooling > Draw > Return-Supply pipe. Click the right mouse button and click Center to center distance to set this distance. Click the right mouse button again and choose Continue from. 
5. Select the Supply and return pipe from the loop and sign through to the Manifold. 
6. If you are near the manifold, right-click Connect to and select the connection point of the Manifold.  

Option B: Continue from Supply / Return pipe and fill area with floor heating.

1. Set the snap and grid settings correctly. See tip 1: GRID Settings. 
2. Click on Palette Foor Heating/Cooling > Draw tab > Return/supply pipe.
3. From the manifold, draw manually towards the group (polyline) > Right-click > Fill area with Floor heating. The loop will now be drawn. 
4. Sometimes there is too little space to generate the loop in the middle automatically. In this case there will be an opening in the middle. 
5. In this case you can draw the last part manually. See the video below: 

 
Option C: Manual drawing of floor heating.

1. Draw a polyline where the heating group should come. 
2. Set the grid as follows: GRID spacing: Twice the center to center distance of the pipe. Snap spacing: center to center distance pipe. (See tip 1: GRID settings). 
3. Click on pallet Heating/cooling > Draw > Supply-return pipe cursor left. Draw from near the manifold towards the heating group. 
4. Draw clockwise along the polyline until the circular loop is filled. > Right mouse button > Close end. 
5. Connect the supply/return line to the manifold. Start the Supply-Return pipe function Cursor left > right mouse button > Continue from > right mouse button > connect to and select the connection point on the manifold. 

Option D. Place floor heating Zigzaglus.

1. Click on the palette Heating / Cooling > floor heating > Place floor heating. Choose Zigzag loop. 
2. Draw a rectangle in which the zigzag loop should be placed. 
3. For an L-shaped room, use the AutoCAD STRETCH function to stretch a part. See VIDEO under Tip 2: STRETCH function. 

TIP 1. GRID Settings

1. For drawing floor heating it is useful to turn on the Grid (grid). The hotkey is F7.
2. Right click on the grid icon at the bottom of the screen   > Grid settings to change the settings.

3. It is convenient to set Grid Spacing at a double distance as the center to center pipe distance. For example: Set Grid Spacing to 200 at a 100 mm center-to-center line spacing.
4. Snap spacing setting should be the center to center pipe spacing. You will then get a snap point every 100 mm. (If F9 function is active).
5. The Base point of the Grid of Snap origin point can only be moved by defining a new origin point for UCS. See LINK

TIP 2. STRETCH function

1. Initially use a rigid pipe to draw. (For example not specified or DYKA HENCO Alu/Pex straight 5m). The corners are then drawn straight. 
2. Use the Stretch function to make the drawn floor heating fit. 
3. In the case of a loop, you can draw the last part manually. See the video below: 

TIP 3. Converting rigid line > flexible line.

The conversion of marked floor heating with right angles can be converted to flexible pipes as follows:

1. Start the Heating/Cooling function > Modify > Change articles.
2. Select a product line with flexible pipes. For example DYKA HENCO Rol Alu/Pex 50m.