We're not a big company by any stretch of the imagination (<20 employees), so we just don't have the manpower or resources to use Revit to its fullest capacity, and currently the mechanical engineers will draw the schematic in CAD, and can produce mark-ups either in CAD or as a hand sketch for the BIM team (i.e. The only downside is that most of the engineers here are 'old-school' and have no interest in learning Revit, which means that if we rely too heavily on Revit to perform calculations, producing schematics, etc., it will end up causing a bottleneck in the company, which is something we are keen to avoid. Thanks for your response - I had seen about the schematic being linked to the model, which seems very helpful. But overall, I would recommend using MagiCAD. iirc there is also an ACAD version of MagiCAD that may be better suited to your needs. Have a chat with the sales guys and get trial copies and have a play. The MagiCAD trainers are very good and incredibly helpful.

However, my company use Revit extensively for drawings and modelling etc, so the internal support is there if needed. It is significantly better at sizing than hevacomp/spreadsheets and if needed the manufacturers libraries are built in. schematic changes size so does section of duct/pipe sizes, flowrates is brilliant and very useful. The ability to draw schematics and have them linked to layouts such that it is always consistent i.e. I have heard some really good things about it (I am electrical so I have not used it for HVAC extensively and the electrical side isn't there yet). My company (a large MEP consultancy) use MagiCAD almost exclusively for HVAC and piping calcs, all except the old school engineers who prefer to do it by hand or use Excel. I appreciate any feedback on it that you may have - thanks for reading. Has anyone else purchased the MagiCAD add in, and if so, what is your experience with it like? Is it good value-for-money? What are the best features of the software?

One of the key things the engineers like is the fact that MagiCAD can perform pressure loss calculations, but aside from that I'm not seeing a whole lot of features that would get regular use with the way we use Revit here. From the resources I have found online, it looks like a powerful design tool, but our designers aren't Revit competent, and, as we currently only have 2 AEC licences, our designs are done in CAD and then passed over to us to translate these designs into Revit. I have been asked by one of the mechanical engineers to look into whether MagiCAD is worth the money, especially since the BIM department here is tiny (myself and one other, who is training to be an engineer but can use Revit). I work for an MEP consultancy, and we're currently looking at MagiCAD to act as a replacement to Bentley HEVACOMP which is being discontinued in the next few month.

Stabicad