Creating Electrical Mounting Height Details and Outlet Annotations

Now let's complete our mounting height detail. Again, we will refer back to our BIM 323 Lighting Drop and Mounting Heights PDF, and we'll go to the second page. We’ll notice a couple of items in green that we’re going to add to the mounting heights detail.

First, we'll find the detail in our project browser. It's called Electrical Mounting Heights. We'll double-click to open it up, and we'll begin right here around this counter.

We have a counter. We could assume that maybe a sink is here, so we want to create the outlet right above. First, we need a dimension right here.

We can recycle what's already been drawn. I can select this dimension, copy it over, grab the elements that belong to it, and press CC on my keyboard. I'll click once, move it to the right, just over here, and click.

I’ll hit Escape, and now I can move things around. First, I’ll select this element, press Move on my keyboard (MV), and move it up about 1'8". It’s going to give me an unjoined element, and that’s okay.

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Now, I can select this line, grab the blue dot, and drag it up to match that line here. Now I can select this line, and grab its blue dot over past that line. That’s looking pretty good now.

Now, I can select the tick mark and press CC on my keyboard to copy. Copy it from the right to the left. So, I’ve got my dimension string here.

Now I notice that this dimension is keyed in with this note here, number one. I’ll select the entire note with its surrounding box and press CC on my keyboard. I'll grab that midpoint and click right here to place it.

That looks good. I can enhance it even better by using the Slice command (SL on my keyboard). Click on that line, hit Escape, and there are some blue dots when I select the line that I can click and drag.

Well, I have one over here to the right, with a couple of different receptacles. So here's one that I already have done, the clock outlet.

I will select it and press CC on my keyboard. I want to grab the right midpoint. I'll click once.

Move it down over the counter, and I’ll click to place it. Go back to Modify. I can do SL for Slice, and slice that line, and do the same trick where we drag each line's blue dot to match where that receptacle needs to be.

Now, this is a duplex receptacle, so I’m going to select this inner circle and press MV to move it on my keyboard. Click and go up. I’ll say about four inches. Ah, that’s probably too far.

I should’ve gone maybe three and a half inches. So, go back down half an inch. Okay, once I have that, I can select it, press MM on my keyboard to mirror it down, and there’s my duplex receptacle.

Okay, with that, I want to add a centerline mark right here, but I’m going to slice the line first this time, SL on my keyboard, and pull those two lines apart to create an opening. Now, I’ll find an existing centerline.

It’s a wide line, arc, and straight lines, and that’s an okay way to do it for a detail—just line work. Click, then click again. And there is my centerline.

Now, I can add some text. The first text I want to add is right here. I want to add duplex receptacle.

I want the 1/8 inch text, and I will just click with the left leader. That’s okay. Click, click, click, and start typing.

I want duplex receptacle, duplex receptacle. Go back to my Modify button, and I want to make a couple of modifications. First, I want to drag the blue dot so it’s on two lines.

I want to move the text close to this symbol. We're showing that this symbol in the floor plan is the receptacle we’re talking about, and we want to move our leader over to the receptacle and move its control point across as well. Something like that.

Get it all lined up, pointing at that receptacle. Okay, perfect. Now we want another text right up here, so Annotate Text.

This time, we can start at the receptacle, click once, come up to the side, click again, and one more time, and we'll type in the text. "Install six feet away from sink or water." Now I can click the Modify button and make a few adjustments here, put it on about three lines, and we’re good to go.

That’s perfect for the left side. Now let's move over to the right. We're pointing at a duplex receptacle, but it doesn't exist.

So what we're going to do is take the computer outlet and copy it over. CC on my keyboard. I'll click once here and click right under that leader. Click, there it is.

Now I need the duplex portion—the two circles inside. I will select these two, press CC on my keyboard, grab that corner, and place it in the corner here. So, there’s a duplex receptacle.

I’ll hit Escape, and now I can copy this. I’ll take the whole thing, press CC on my keyboard, and bring it about to the middle here, maybe not quite the middle, somewhere in here, and click. There it is. That’s my telephone outlet.

And I believe we have a triangle. Let’s double-check with our PDF.

It might just be a circle. Let’s zoom in a little tighter here and see what we have. Yep, looks like just our regular outlet there.

We’ll just put a circle, showing there’s a symbol there.

So, all I do is delete my circles—delete, delete. I already have one up here. I’ll grab that clock outlet, grab that circle, press CC on my keyboard, and put it right there.

Okay, so I’ve got my three outlets. I need a circle in that last one as well, so I’ll do CC, put a circle in that one as well. Now I need a dimension right here.

Let’s recycle one of our existing dimensions. I’ll grab this dimension, select that line work and the text, and copy it over. I’ll click and click somewhere right there.

There it is. I need to grab this portion and move it down. I want to move it to the centerline of that receptacle.

Before I move it, I might click it and drag its dot out, grab it again, press CC to copy. I made it nice and big so I don’t have anything ambiguous. I can go to that midpoint and place it right there.

Okay, with that, it looks like I copied it, so I can delete what's existing. Grab that vertical line, grab the blue dot and drag it down. I can take this line, and bring it to the receptacle first.

I’ll copy it, CC, bring it to the other side. I want to go up here, get my centerline, press CC to copy it. It’s all just line work.

I can just copy all the way across, get this line, and connect out to that final outlet. And with that, I want to move and adjust this text. So, I’ll do MV on my keyboard, MV to move, drag it down.

And I might need to use the arrows to get it to line up how it wants to be, so I can see the tick mark. And this one is going to be 18 inches. So, 18 inches, AFF is above finish floor.

Okay, so there we go. This is our finish floor. And you know what? I’ve gone a little bit too far.

That’s my computer outlet. I went too far. I’m going to drag this line back, and I don’t need that circle.

I need another outlet right here. So, right under this triangle, I’m going to grab this, copy it, press CC on my keyboard, and place it right there. Now I have that second outlet.

This is my special outlet. So right now, I’ve got my duplex receptacle. This is a telephone outlet.

So, I’ll copy this over, double-click, and this is my telephone outlet. I want that close to that little triangle symbol. I’ll drag this down, and I might need to grab this guy and move it over.

So, I’ll do MV on my keyboard. There we go. And that moved over, it looks really good.

Telephone outlet. Now, this one is a special-purpose power outlet. So, what I want to do is a couple of things.

I want to do a leader and draw that special purpose symbol. So, let’s go ahead and create the text first. I’m going to go up to annotate text.

And this time I’ll be a little bit trickier, and I want my leader to be on the right only. So, right-sided leader. We’ll click up here.

That means the right leader will be at the top. I’ll click my text. A couple of times for the leader, that’s okay.

And I want to put in my special purpose outlet. Click and modify and move it across. I want to move that leader.

It should stay up high now. And I want to go up here to that special-purpose outlet and drag this over. Something like that.

Now, I want to go back to my annotate detail lines, make sure I’m on medium lines, and draw a circle. So, I’ll do a circle. Click right in the middle.

Click, pull that out. There’s my circle. Now, I also want a triangle, so I can be tricky.

There is a circumscribed polygon, so I’ll click that. And size, I’ll change it to three. Enter.

I’ll click right in the center of my circle and pull this out. I can zoom in until it’s about perfect right there. And that is my special-purpose outlet.

It’s a triangle and a circle all together. I’ll click modify, and I’m back in business. So, that’s it.

I have all of my mounting height details completed.