Building engineering
MEP design
Full engineering design and documentation for the mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems.
An MEP design is the documentation that turns a building's mechanical, electrical and plumbing parts into one working system before installation begins. It fixes how the space is ventilated and heated, where the power comes from and at what capacity, how water supply and drainage run, and where the low-current routes are laid. The fire-safety section is settled here as well, and it is the section that gets checked at approval: what has to be installed, where, and what the technical regulation in force demands of it.
A duct, a pipe, a cable tray and a structural beam share the same space above the suspended ceiling, and each of them is drawn by a different specialist. If those drawings meet for the first time on site, the clash gets resolved during installation instead: ceiling heights drop, routes are moved, a hole is asked for in a part of the structure where it cannot be made, and work already finished is done twice. That is why the disciplines are coordinated on the drawing first, with each other and with the architectural base: where the main route runs, which system passes under which, and where the space for shafts and plant rooms is set aside. A survey of the site and the technical brief come before that: what the building is for, how many people it will hold and what load each system has to carry, with measurement of the existing networks added on an occupied site.
The drawing set is itself the thing being bought, and it is judged by how many clashes were taken out on paper before the first hole was cut on site. The same drawings are read by the contractor during installation, by the reviewing authority at approval and, years later, by whoever maintains the systems, so what they record is not only the principle but the sizes, the levels and the reserve left in the shafts and the boards. That is what separates a set that gets opened and followed on site from one that is put aside in the first week of installation.
What it covers
- Site survey and technical brief
- Mechanical, electrical and plumbing design
- Fire-safety section to current regulations
- Complete working documentation and specifications
- Cost estimate against the design
Where it applies
- New office and business centres
- Multi-unit residential developments
- Hotels and healthcare facilities
- Shopping centres and mixed-use developments
- Production buildings and warehouses
- Refurbishment and re-planning of existing space
Standards and regulations
No single standard governs an MEP design: each discipline answers to its own body of rules, and their requirements have to be met at the same time on the same drawing. The standards for low-voltage electrical installations (the IEC 60364 family) set the protective measures, the conductor sizes and the choice of protective devices, while the norm for lighting of work places (EN 12464-1) sets the illuminance level and its uniformity in each task area. The European norm for heating load (EN 12831) requires the heating capacity to be calculated room by room rather than from the overall floor area of the building, and the EN standards for indoor climate and ventilation set the fresh-air flow according to the use of the space and the number of people in it. The water section is governed by the EN standards for drinking-water installations inside buildings and for gravity drainage, and the fire section by the fire-safety technical regulation in force in Georgia together with the NFPA and EN series for the individual systems.
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Frequently asked questions
What does an MEP design include?
An MEP design brings together the mechanical, electrical and plumbing parts of a building: ventilation, heating and cooling, power distribution, low-current routes, water supply and drainage, plus the fire-safety section. Besides the calculations, the set contains working drawings, specifications and the cost estimate built on them. It is this documentation that a tender is run from and that the installation is checked against.
Is an MEP design mandatory, and who checks it?
The engineering and fire-safety sections are governed by the regulations in force, and the relevant authority reviews them. What exactly is required depends on the function and category of the building: a hotel, a clinic and a retail site are not held to the same conditions. What your site needs is established at the consultation and survey stage.
What is the difference between an architectural design and an MEP design?
The architectural design defines the spaces, the facade and the structure; the MEP design defines what works inside those spaces: air, power, water and low-current systems. MEP is drawn on the architectural base and sends requirements back to it: the position of shafts, plant rooms and ceiling heights. The two have to agree on paper, otherwise the mismatch turns up on site.
How much does an MEP design cost?
Here the level of detail decides more than anything else. A concept scheme, which sets out the principle and the main calculations, is a far smaller package than a full working set, where every floor, every plant assembly and every specification is drawn separately. After that come the floor area and how many systems are in scope: a ventilation package on its own and a complete MEP are not the same job. So the first thing the technical brief fixes is how far into detail the set goes, and the extent of the work is set from there.
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