CJSpud Posted February 14, 2015 Share Posted February 14, 2015 I was experimenting with using the Build > Electrical > Auto Place Outlets functionality in X7 and ran into some interesting behavior discoveries. 1. When I auto placed outlets in the kitchen room, Chief ignored the room divider that I have separating the kitchen room from the living room and placed outlets in both rooms. 2. Chief "also" placed a default light over the kitchen sink even though the light obviously is not an outlet. 3. For the cooktop and hood, Chief placed GFCI outlets for both appliances on the wall behind the base cabinet that the cooktop is installed in. 4. I have a 48" base cabinet to the right of the cooktop and Chief would not place a GFCI outlet above the cabinet anywhere. 5. For the island, I used a couple of 36" bases on one end and put a 32" kitchen sink in one of those to see if Chief would put a light over it (like it did for the sink base against the wall ... it did not ... therefore, I am assuming Chief only places a light over a kitchen sink against a wall. 6. In the attached plan, in the bath, I placed a double vanity that I had created in X4 or X5 and saved to the library as an architectural block. When I did the Auto Place Outlets for the bath, Chief did not add any electrical outlets or lighting to the bath. Next, I selected by double vanity and change the layer to Cabinets, Base and then ran the Auto Place Outlets tool again and still no electrical got placed into the bath. Next, I exploded my double vanity into two separate base cabinets with sinks and ran the Auto Place Outlets tool one more time and Chief this time placed default default "wall" light fixtures over each sink but didn't place any GFCI(s) on the wall. 7. Curiosity is getting the best of me now. I place another base cabinet (24" wide) with a round sink from the Library on the wall in front of the toilet and then run Auto Place Outlets again to see what happens. Chief this time puts a light and a GFCI on the wall behind this cabinet and again puts lights above each sink of my saved and exploded vanities with sinks (from my user library) but still no outlet behind either of these vanity cabinets. 8. Next, still in the curiosity mode, I place a base cabinet (no sink) between my exploded double vanity cabinets on the left wall and the tub/shower fixture ... then ran Auto Place Outlets again. Chief now places a GFCI outlet to the right side of the newly placed base cabinet as well as the same results as reported in #7 above. 9. I tried several other sink/cabinet combinations to see what Chief would do with them when I ran Auto Place Outlets when each as added to the bath room: a. A base cabinet with the "Flair Oval Vessel Sink" placed on the countertop (unblocked) does get a GFCI on the wall but no light above. If you block that sink to the base, I didn't get an outlet or a light. I am not sure why that sink doesn't become associated with the base cabinet when placed on it and the placement doesn't want to attach to the center of the base cabinet either, which I think it should. b. A base cabinet with a kitchen sink placed in the bath room will get a ceiling mounted light but no GFCI. c. A base cabinet with a "Bowl" sink (small sink - possibly for kitchen islands ??) place in the bath room gets neither a wall or ceiling light nor an outlet. d. A base cabinet with a "Bowl (undermount)" sink placed in the bath room yields a ceiling light but no wall outlet (go figure!!!). e. A "Chunky Pedestal" sink from the Library placed against the wall yields both a default wall light and a GFCI on the wall. Out of curiosity, I bumped the sink 1" away from the wall and still got the light and outlet when running Auto Place Outlets. If I continue bumping that sink out away from the wall, I lose the ability to get a light and outlet when it is 4" away from the wall. f. When I placed an "ELU1511" (oval sink - possibly another kitchen prep sink) in a cabinet, I get a ceiling light overhead but no outlet. Conclusions: I think the one observation that baffled me the most was why my library saved double vanity didn't generate any wall GFCI outlets, even when exploded to individual cabinets? Another was why wasn't I able to get Chief to place a GFCI to the right of the cooktop above the 48" base cabinet? I think there's some inconsistent or improper behavior going on with some of Chief's library symbols that could use some cleaning up. I only sampled a few so I don't have a clue how the rest will work in a plan. Hopefully, the Chief content developers will take a look at all their library symbols that have functionality with the Auto Place Outlets tool and make sure they all function in a logical manner. AutoPlaceOutlets.zip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DRAWZILLA Posted February 14, 2015 Share Posted February 14, 2015 yep, I have never use the auto place outlets , they have never worked correctly for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chief58 Posted February 16, 2015 Share Posted February 16, 2015 Curt this has happened for me in previous versions also all other rooms will do the auto place outlets with no problem, since our codes require arc fault recep. in all rooms I have that setup for my defaults for auto placement and it will put in gfi for bathrooms Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CJSpud Posted February 16, 2015 Author Share Posted February 16, 2015 Thanks Ray. I haven't had to do very many electrical plans and to be honest, I think I just used the "stick pin" to make multiple copies of the different outlets and switches the last time I did one. Do you have an AFCI label for all required outlet locations or are those covered with AFCI circuit breakers in the panel? I am a little out-of-date on those requirements. I just read a decent article on AFCI's at: http://www.codecheck.com/cc/ccimages/PDFs/AFCIsComeOfAge.pdf Not exactly sure when it was written and it sounds a little dated, but a decent article on the history of AFCI's if someone is interested. The code check site also has another article on safety glazing that I downloaded and saved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chief58 Posted February 16, 2015 Share Posted February 16, 2015 Curt there is an afci recep. in the lib under electricl outlets wall mounted, I make this my default in the default setup, here in Pa I have to provide a basic electrical plan to code for my clients, I just do the basic to get them through permitting then they can do a walk thru with there contractor to what they want and some want me to show everything they want to have which is ok since I use to do my own electrical when I had my construction business, things so fairly quick in Chief doing the electrical plans only thing I wish they would change is how the connection arc works it auto makes to big of an arch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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