October 6, 2026
Metres of pipe per size are the most straightforward part of a pipe takeoff. The fittings, the vertical runs and the items on the pipework are the parts that come up short, and on most pipework packages that is where a large share of the labour sits.
This article covers pipe takeoff from PDF drawings: measuring runs so the lengths come out right per system and size, what an automatic count of changes of direction gives you, and what no plan-based count will find for you.
Be clear about the output before measuring, because it decides how you draw.
Lengths and counts come off the plan directly. Fittings come off it only partly. Vertical lengths come from somewhere else.
In Planmetry there is no dedicated pipe tool: runs are drawn with the Line tool, clicking along the route shown on the drawing, and each line's length goes into the material list. Snapping pulls the cursor onto the drawing's own lines and corners, so points land on the designer's linework more reliably than freehand clicks do. Where a run follows a wall, the wall route option follows the drawn wall to an end point you click, rather than needing a click at every corner — it follows walls, not pipe symbols, so check the result where the pipe leaves the wall.
Confirm the sheet's scale against a dimension you know before drawing anything — every length on the sheet depends on it.
Four habits make the lengths usable:
Split a run wherever it changes. A new size, material or system is a new item. One line that runs from 28 mm down to 15 mm produces a length that belongs to neither.
One item per run, named for the bill. Name each run for what it is in the price — system, material and size — not "line 14". The material list groups on the name, so every run with the same name sums into one line. "Heating flow — copper 22 mm" on the first sheet is "Heating flow — copper 22 mm" on the last.
Set the diameter as a property, in bulk. Diameter is a basic property of a line item. Selecting every run of one size and setting the diameter once is faster and more reliable than doing it run by run, and it puts the size in its own column.
Keep the size in the name as well. This looks redundant until you combine drawings. When the material lists of several sheets are rolled up, rows merge on name and unit, and diameter is shown only where every merged row agrees. Two sizes sharing a name merge into one length with a blank diameter. Carrying the size in the name is what keeps them apart. Combining material lists from multiple drawings covers how that merge works.
Every run you draw is a polyline, and its corners are information. Planmetry counts them: each corner on a line item where the direction changes by more than 10 degrees is counted as a bend, and the count sits alongside the length in the material list, summed across the group like any other quantity.
The threshold is there because route-assisted drawing leaves near-straight intermediate points along a run, and counting those would inflate the figure. Below it, a corner is treated as a straight continuation.
The count comes from the drawn points, so it applies to runs drawn before the feature existed, and it is the same whether you work in metric or imperial.
The number is a count of changes of direction in the geometry you drew. It is not a fittings quantity, and the difference matters.
What the count does give you is a checkable figure, run by run, for the changes of direction on the plan — without tallying corners by eye on a dense sheet, which is exactly the counting that drifts on a large job. Use it to cross-check your own fitting count run by run — not as the fitting count itself. Tees, reducers, vertical fittings and the choice between elbow and bend still come from reading the drawing and the specification.
Plan length is the horizontal projection of a run. Two things follow.
Vertical legs are missing. Every metre that goes straight up or down is absent from the plan length, and on a multi-storey building that can be a substantial share of the total. Take risers and drops from the sections, the schematic or the riser diagram and add them to the quantities yourself — as separate entries named to match the horizontal runs they belong to, or as their own lines if you want to see vertical metres separately. Nothing detects or links them for you.
Sloping runs are slightly longer than they look. A graded run's true length is a little more than its plan length. At normal drainage gradients the difference is small; on a steep run, take the developed length rather than adding the full rise on top of the plan length, which would overstate it.
The fittings at the top and bottom of a vertical run depend on how it terminates — a pair of elbows on a simple offset, a tee where it branches, a connection where it meets equipment. The detail decides; no rule of thumb does.
Valves, fixtures, cleanouts and drains are counted rather than measured. Where they are drawn as repeating symbols, object detection speeds the count up: click one example and it looks for matching symbols on the page, including rotated and mirrored ones, which you then name and check. Counting symbols on a PDF floor plan covers the checks that make that count reliable — chiefly that the marks show you what was found and nothing about what was missed.
Two different things sit between the measured length and the order, and they are worth keeping apart.
Procurement allowances — cut waste, stock lengths, offcuts — turn a net measured length into a purchase quantity. They are pricing decisions, applied to clean measured quantities where you price.
Separately measured scope — supports, insulation, sleeves — is real work with its own quantities, set by the specification. Support spacing varies by material, size and orientation, and supports are added at changes of direction and fittings as well as along straight runs. Insulation follows the systems and sizes the specification calls for, not the whole pipework total.
A formula field in the material list can carry a simple relationship alongside the measurement if that helps you, but formulas do arithmetic only — they do not round up to whole items — so treat them as working figures rather than order quantities.
The output is quantities. There is no fittings schedule, no rate and no waste factor in it: those belong where you price.
Take a pipework layout you have already priced, draw the runs on one floor, and compare the lengths and the change-of-direction count with your existing figures. Where the two differ, the gap is worth explaining — risers, tees and sweeps are good places to start.
