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PLUMBING · CSI DIV 22TRADE · PLUMBING

Fixtures, water, drain, vent, gas — by the riser.

Plumbing takeoff is a 3D problem. Most tools flatten it to a floor plan and quietly lose the stacks.

Plumbing takeoff (CSI Division 22) is not a count of dots on a floor plan. It is a vertical-run problem: water risers, sanitary stacks, vents, and gas mains travel between floors, jog around structure, and only reveal themselves when you read the floor plans, riser diagrams, and isometric details together. PlanSwift and STACK are slow here because the operator has to manually walk every riser across every sheet — BuildBid reads the riser diagrams and isometrics alongside the floor plans so the vertical scope is captured up front.

Material deltas drive the bid. Copper, PEX-A, PEX-B, CPVC, and PP-R each carry a different cost per LF, different labor productivity, and different fitting count. BuildBid extracts the spec section (22 11 / 22 13 / 22 40) to lock the material per system, then prices the water and drain runs against the assembly so the copper-vs-PEX delta is visible before submission rather than after.

Fixtures are counted by type with the schedule treated as authoritative. Water closets, lavatories, urinals, sinks, showers, tubs, floor drains, hose bibbs, drinking fountains, and emergency eyewash/shower units are pulled from the plumbing fixture schedule (P-001 style) and tied back to their plan locations so spot-checks are one click.

Backflow preventers, water-heater schedules, and DWV rough-in are surfaced as their own line items — not buried inside a generic 'plumbing' assembly — because they are the categories where bids get won or lost on labor hours.

Try on a sample plumbing packageSee sample takeoff
WORKFLOW · HOW IT ACTUALLY RUNS6 STEPS
  1. STEP 01

    Upload P-series + risers + isos

    Floor plans (P-1xx water, P-2xx sanitary, P-3xx gas), riser diagrams, isometric details, fixture schedule, water-heater schedule, backflow schedule. Specs 22 05 / 22 11 / 22 13 / 22 14 / 22 33 / 22 40 are cross-read for material, insulation, and backflow scope.

  2. STEP 02

    Fixtures matched to schedule

    Every WC, LAV, UR, S, SH, TUB, FD, HB, DF, EW/ES symbol on the plan is matched to its row in the fixture schedule. Schedule is treated as the source of truth; plan-vs-schedule mismatches flagged before the draft closes.

  3. STEP 03

    Water + DWV linear feet extracted

    Cold water, hot water, hot-water return, sanitary waste, vent, and storm lines are traced sheet-by-sheet AND riser-by-riser. Linear feet by pipe size populate per system — separately for above-grade and below-slab — with material locked to the spec section.

  4. STEP 04

    Material delta priced (copper vs PEX vs CPVC)

    Once the LF is grounded, BuildBid prices each domestic-water system against the spec'd material AND against alternates. The copper-vs-PEX-A-vs-CPVC delta is shown as a side-by-side so VE conversations happen before bid day, not after award.

  5. STEP 05

    Backflow + water heater + gas mains surfaced

    Backflow preventer schedule (RPZ, DCDA, PVB), water-heater schedule (gas/electric, gallons, recovery, venting), and gas-line sizing (LF by size, regulators, shutoffs) come out as discrete line items. Septic vs municipal connection scope is called out explicitly.

  6. STEP 06

    Review + export

    Draft lands sorted by confidence with riser-tied spot-checks. Nudge any fixture to reassign its schedule row, correct a pipe-size segment, or flip a material alternate. Export CSV or into a BuildBid estimate with system + size + material preserved.

PAIN · WHAT THIS REPLACES

Where the hours actually go today

  • Vertical risers walked manually across 6+ floors in PlanSwift / STACK because the floor-plan-only UI loses the stack between sheets — the estimator either undercounts the riser LF or burns two hours rebuilding it from the isometric.
  • Fixture counts taken from the plan rather than the schedule — water closets get counted right but the carriers, supplies, stops, and trim get buried in a generic per-fixture allowance that does not match the spec.
  • Copper vs PEX vs CPVC alternates priced as an afterthought instead of side-by-side, so the VE conversation happens post-award when the labor savings are already gone.
  • DWV rough-in lumped together — sanitary, vent, and storm at the same productivity rate — when below-slab sanitary is a completely different labor exercise from above-ceiling vent.
  • Backflow preventers and water-heater venting missed because they live on a schedule sheet the takeoff tool never opened.
  • Gas line sizing read off the floor plan with no LF-by-size breakout, then re-typed by hand into the estimate with transcription errors on the regulator and shutoff count.
  • Septic vs municipal connection scope assumed instead of confirmed — site civil scope and plumbing scope handshake gets dropped at the property line.
LIMITS · WHAT BUILDBID IS NOT YET

Honest gaps — read before you buy

  • Isometric piping diagrams are read as images with structured OCR — small isos for individual fixture groups are reliable; large building isos still want a manual sanity-check on the riser totals.
  • Slope and invert-elevation extraction on below-slab sanitary is captured where called out on the plan, but where the engineer has only labeled the start and end inverts we infer the run-by-run slope rather than reading it directly.
  • Medical gas (CSI 22 60), lab waste / acid-resistant systems, and pure-water systems are flagged as distinct scopes but the assembly library is less mature than domestic water and sanitary.
  • Hangers and supports are quantified as a per-LF factor against pipe size, not by reading the hanger detail sheet — accurate for tight-bid ranges but flagged for review on long structural-bay runs.
  • Fire protection (CSI Division 21 — sprinklers, standpipes) is intentionally out of scope on this page; it is a separate trade with its own NFPA-driven sizing logic.
REVIEW FOCUS · WHAT TO CHECK4 AREAS
CHECK 01

Riser diagram alongside the floor plan — each riser segment color-coded by system (CW / HW / HWR / sanitary / vent / gas) with LF rolled up by size.

CHECK 02

Fixture schedule cross-read — plan-counted WC / LAV / UR / S / SH / TUB / FD per area vs. schedule quantity, with trim and carrier rows tied to each fixture row.

CHECK 03

Copper vs PEX-A vs CPVC side-by-side on the domestic-water lines — LF and material cost delta per system, with the spec'd material flagged.

CHECK 04

Backflow + water-heater schedules extracted as structured rows — RPZ / DCDA / PVB type, location, size for backflow; gas vs electric, gallons, recovery, venting for water heaters.

NEXT · TRY ON A SAMPLE

Sample plans, zero setup. The draft comes back with quantities, confidence flags, and the source rows we used. You review before you send.

Try on a sample plumbing package