Drawing an electrical floor plan in Volter

The floor plan: draw it, import it or skip it

You draw with the build tools: walls (shortcut S), doors (D), windows (F) and stairs (H), as straight, quarter-turn or spiral stairs. A door gets a width, an opening direction and a hinge side.

If you already have the architect's plan, lay it under your drawing as a background: a PDF (you pick the page), a DXF file or an image, such as a photo of a paper plan. Then calibrate the scale: click two points whose real distance you know, for example a dimension line or a 93 cm door opening, and enter that distance. Wall lengths, dimensions and areas then match the house.

You can also start placing symbols without drawing a single wall. For the single-line diagram only the devices, their circuit and their connections count.

Rooms that matter

With Assign room (G) you click inside an enclosed space and Volter recognises the room from the walls. Without walls you drag a rectangle. A room carries a name and, if you like, its area on the plan.

Two properties drive the AREI check. Mark a room as Bath or shower and every circuit going there must sit behind a 30 mA RCD. A Damp room, such as a basement, garage, laundry room or covered terrace, gets a warning if it has ordinary socket outlets instead of splash-proof ones.

In the PDF the bill of materials counts every symbol per storey and per room, so on site you see per room what belongs there.

Placing symbols

The palette has six groups: Lighting, Switches, Outlets, Appliances, Solar panels and Other. You search by name or pick from your recently used symbols. While placing you choose the quantity right away and, if you already know it, the circuit.

Some devices carry data the diagram and the inspection ask for: the power of an EV charging station, the peak wattage of solar panels, the maximum and nominal power of an inverter.

Data and coax outlets can go on the plan. They do not appear on the single-line diagram, because the AREI keeps them outside the electrical installation.

Circuits and connections on the plan

With Draw connection (T) you link devices, such as a switch to its light points. With Assign circuit (Y) you put them on a circuit. Every device then gets a reference on the plan such as B1, and with Circuit colour in the status bar you see the colour of its circuit outside that tool too. How to get from there to a complete single-line diagram is explained in drawing a single-line diagram.

Several storeys

A project starts with the ground floor. You add storeys, rename, duplicate or reorder them. Duplicating saves drawing work when storeys are identical.

A circuit that spans two storeys, such as a staircase two-way circuit, you connect with Connect to other floor. The status bar shows per storey how many devices still have no circuit, and the PDF gets a floor plan per storey.