Everything you want to know before you start.

Volter is a drawing program for Belgian electrical installations. You draw the floor plan of the home and place the devices on it: that is your situation plan. Divide those devices across circuits and Volter builds the single-line diagram from them, while it checks whether your installation meets the AREI.

For electrical installers who have to hand in diagrams for the inspection, for engineering firms that design installations, and for do-it-yourselfers getting their own home in order. Your projects stay available after your subscription ends: you can open them, view them and export them as a backup.

In AutoCAD or Visio you draw lines, and the program has no idea what they stand for. Volter knows circuits, breakers, residual current devices, cable cross-sections and appliances, and that changes the work. You place your devices on the floor plan once and divide them across circuits, and the single-line diagram and the board layout follow from that. Move something or rework a circuit and they keep up. Meanwhile the AREI check runs along: too many outlets on one circuit, a missing residual current device or a cross-section that is too thin shows up while you draw, not at the inspection. In a general drawing program you keep those three drawings in step by hand and check everything yourself.

The two diagrams they need: the floor plan and the single-line diagram. Volter puts them in one PDF, with your board layout alongside and the details of your job site and of you as the installer in the footer. That is exactly the part of the inspection file you provide. The measurements and the inspection report come from the inspection body afterwards.

The symbols, the diagrams and the validation follow the Belgian AREI. The interface is available in Dutch, French, English and German, but the rules are Belgian.

Yes, that is what it is made for: you export your diagrams as a PDF and hand that to the inspector. Volter draws to the AREI conventions and checks your installation against the rules in Book 1, so you spot mistakes before the inspector does. That check is an aid, not a guarantee: it catches a lot, but not every situation. Verifying that your diagram is right and your installation compliant remains the installer's job.

Volter checks your installation against the rules in Book 1 that a diagram can show: the composition of your circuits and the cable cross-sections, the protection per circuit, the residual current regime, the dedicated circuits required for large appliances, the smoke detectors and more. That is a sample, not a complete list, and the check grows with the AREI. What an inspector establishes on site, such as the measurements and the state of the equipment, falls outside it. The check runs live while you draw, with a list of findings per project.

On Book 1 of the AREI, the book covering low voltage and extra-low voltage installations.

Then we adjust the rules and you receive them with an update. The changelog tells you what changed.

Because the AREI keeps them outside the electrical installation: Book 1 excludes data transmission and cable distribution installations from its scope, and the mandatory content of the single-line diagram is purely the power side. You may put them on the floor plan, and many installers do. It is not required, but it makes the plan useful for your client and for whoever works on it later.

Yes. You draw the installation as it is, and the validation shows right away where it deviates from today's rules.

You create a project with the details of the job site, draw the walls of the floor plan, place the devices and divide them across circuits. The single-line diagram is generated from that automatically.

Yes. Open the demo home in your browser and try everything: drawing, building circuits, viewing the single-line diagram and watching the AREI validation work. Changes to the demo are not saved.

No, none of that is required. You can place devices right away and divide them across circuits. Drawing walls is handy because Volter derives your rooms from them, but you can also mark a room as a rectangle, or import an existing plan as a background without tracing anything. Rooms are mainly there for the plan itself: they put a name and a floor area on the drawing, so your client and the inspector can see what sits where.

Yes, a DXF file, a PDF or an image. You calibrate the scale by marking a known distance, so your measurements are right.

No. You place your devices on the floor plan and divide them across circuits. The single-line diagram is generated automatically and keeps up as you work on the plan.

Without an account you open the demo home and try the full editor, including the AREI validation and the single-line diagram. Changes to that demo are not saved. Saving your own projects belongs to the subscription. If your subscription ends later, you keep opening your projects and exporting them as a backup, you just cannot save them anymore.

During the beta you use Volter in full for free, with no payment details. What a subscription costs afterwards, including the monthly and yearly comparison, is on the pricing page.

Not yet. Leave your email address on the waiting list and we will let you know as soon as subscriptions open.

You keep opening them, viewing them and exporting them as a backup. What you cannot do is save changes. We delete nothing ourselves, and if you want to clear things out, you can always delete your projects, subscription or not.

Yes. Payment runs through Paddle, which acts as the seller and issues your invoice. Prices are shown including VAT.

Not for the demo home. You do to keep your own projects and open them on several devices.

Yes. Your licence covers the devices you use yourself: the desktop version on your laptop and your work PC, and the web version in the browser. You sign in with the same account everywhere and your projects sync automatically, so you carry on where you left off. An account is personal and issued to one named user, so a colleague needs their own.

Yes. After your last connection the desktop version keeps working fully for a limited time. Whatever you save in that period reaches your account as soon as you are back online.

Request a new password on the sign-in screen. You will get an email with a link to set one.

Not today. Projects belong to one account, but you can pass a project on as a backup file. If you need to work together, tell us with the feedback button in the app: requests like that help decide what we build next.

In your library, with a preview per floor, the address, the client and the inspection status for every project. You can filter by inspection status and switch between grid and list, and you open them on any device you sign in to.

Yes. You export every project as a .vschema file, for your archive or for your client. You bring such a backup back in with "Import backup".

PDF and PNG. The PDF bundles your diagrams into the document you hand to your client or the inspector, the PNG is handy for a quick look or an email. In the free version both carry a watermark.

A state you keep yourself, for your own overview: in progress, ready for inspection or inspected. The border of the card takes on that colour and you can filter your library by it, so you see at a glance which job sites still need work. It is not an official status and none of it goes to an inspection body.

Yes, with "Save as". You get a duplicate in your library and Volter asks for the details of the new job site right away.

Volter runs in the browser at app.volter.be, so there is nothing to install. If you want to keep working without internet, install Volter on your device: macOS 12 or newer with Apple Silicon, Windows 10 or newer, and Ubuntu 20.04 or newer. Handy on a job site with no connection.

In the browser there is nothing to do: at app.volter.be you always work with the newest version. The desktop version looks for updates by itself, downloads them in the background and then asks you to restart Volter. What is new is in the changelog.

Yes. What you draw is yours, we only keep it for you. You take any project out of your account as a backup file for your own archive, and your diagrams leave as PDF or PNG for your client or the inspector. Even when your subscription ends, you can still get to your projects.

On Google Firebase, in your own account. That holds the drawing itself, together with what you fill in about the job site, the client and yourself as the installer. Only you can reach it: without signing in with your account nobody gets to your projects, and all traffic is encrypted. What exactly we keep is set out in our privacy policy.

The desktop app sends a short signal at start-up and once a day after that: an identifier for your device, your plan, the app version and your operating system. Your name, your email address and your projects are not part of it, and the web version sends nothing. We use no third-party analytics, tracking pixels or advertising cookies.

Through info@volter.be, or with the feedback button in the app. You can attach a screenshot right away.

Please do. Send it through the feedback button or by email. A large part of what is in Volter came from questions by installers.

In the changelog on this website, and in the app when you start it after an update.