House Wiring Plan Software: Draw, Calculate, Export

House wiring plan software turns a floor plan into that package: symbols placed, circuits assigned, loads calculated, panel scheduled, documents exported. This guide describes what such a tool must deliver, a workflow that works, and the limits to check.

What a house wiring plan must answer

Before comparing products, write down the questions the drawing must answer. A plan that cannot answer them is a sketch.

• Where is every outlet, switch, luminaire and appliance, and at what height?
• Which circuit feeds each point, and what protects it?
• What cable size and route does each circuit use, and how is it contained?
• What is the connected load, the diversified demand and the voltage drop at the farthest point?
• How is the panel laid out, with what spare ways, and what is the earthing arrangement?

Tools that only draw symbols answer the first question. Tools that calculate but cannot draw answer the fourth. The useful ones connect the two, so a moved socket updates the circuit length and the bill of materials.

Who actually uses it

Three audiences read the same document differently. The homeowner looks for sockets where furniture goes. The electrician looks for circuit groupings, cable sizes and whether the routes are buildable. The inspector looks for protection, earthing and consistency between plan, schedule and calculations.

What the package should contain

If a product produces the first two and calls the rest “documentation”, you will maintain a spreadsheet alongside it forever. The link from quantities to cost is covered in our electrical takeoff software guide.

Draw one room and see the package. Open the GorkyCAD demo — a plan, a circuit and a panel schedule in the browser.

The workflow: from floor plan to issued PDF

1. Import the plan. PDF, image or a scan of an old technical-inventory drawing. Set the scale from one known dimension and verify against a second.
2. Mark the building. Walls, openings, room names, floor levels. Nothing later is trustworthy if the geometry is approximate.
3. Place devices. Sockets, switches, luminaires, heaters. Set mounting heights as attributes, not as notes.
4. Group into circuits. Assign devices as you place them; a circuit is a property of the device, not a colour added later.
5. Lay out the routes. Cable paths along walls, voids and containment — this is where material quantity is decided.
6. Build the panel. Ways, protective devices, RCD grouping, spare capacity, labels that match the plan.
7. Check and export. Load, voltage drop, fault loop, unassigned device, duplicate label; then PDF, DXF or XLSX.

The order matters. Teams that place devices first and think about circuits afterwards spend the last day reconciling the schedule with the plan by hand.

Circuits and the panel

How you group points into circuits determines cost, safety and how much a single fault inconveniences the occupant. Three rules of thumb survive most residential work:

• Keep kitchen and utility separate. High-load appliances should not share a way with lighting.
• Protect by risk, not by room. Socket, bathroom and outdoor circuits usually need residual current protection; the exact requirement depends on the code and the earthing arrangement.
• Leave spare ways. Two spare ways cost less now than a new board later.

The panel schedule is what an electrician reads on site, so label it the way the plan labels devices. If the plan says “S12” and the schedule says “Living 3”, somebody will guess.

The calculations worth automating

Wiring software earns its place when it does the arithmetic you would otherwise do at midnight:

• Load and demand. Sum connected load, apply a diversity factor, compare with the supply. A 68 m² flat might show 18 kW connected; at 0.5 that is 9 kW, about 39 A at 230 V. Whether 0.5 is right is an engineering judgement, not a software setting.
• Voltage drop. Single-phase: ΔV ≈ 2 × I × L × ρ / A, with ρ ≈ 0.0175 Ω·mm²/m for copper at 20 °C. A 16 A load on 25 m of 2.5 mm² gives 5.6 V, about 2.4% of 230 V. Three-phase uses √3, so 32 A over 40 m of 10 mm² drops about 3.9 V, under 1% of 400 V.
• Fault loop impedance. Shows whether the protective device will trip in time. It depends on supply, transformer, cable and earthing — and it is the calculation most often skipped on small jobs.
• Cable sizing. Ampacity, grouping, insulation, installation method, ambient temperature, voltage drop and fault withstand combined. Software should show its assumptions, because a size without them cannot be reviewed.

None of these can be automated correctly without visible assumptions. A calculation you cannot audit is worse than a hand calculation you can.

Exports: what each format is for

Browser or desktop?

Desktop CAD gives you deep symbol libraries, offline working and precise control over large drawing sets. It also gives you installs, licence servers, a training curve measured in weeks and files only one person can open.

Browser tools give you a project that opens on any machine, one version for everyone, and a client who can look at the plan without installing anything. The trade is real: no offline work, limits on very large drawings, less control over obscure drafting conventions.

For a house — even a large one — the browser model usually fits. For fifty apartment blocks with a CAD standard written in 2009, it may not.

Seven mistakes these tools do not prevent

1. Designing from furniture instead of function. Sockets behind a sofa are sockets nobody uses.
2. Circuits grouped by drawing convenience rather than by load and risk.
3. Heights assumed, not stated. A socket at 300 mm in a kitchen is discovered with a washing machine.
4. No spare ways, no space for a future circuit.
5. Voltage drop ignored on long garden runs — the cable is protected, the equipment still misbehaves.
6. Schedule and plan diverging after the third revision.
7. Issuing a drawing without calculations, so nobody can tell whether the design was checked.

What GorkyCAD Pro does, and what it does not

GorkyCAD Pro covers that workflow in a browser: import a floor plan, place devices, build circuits and a panel, draw the single-line diagram, run load, short-circuit, voltage-drop and cable-sizing calculations, generate the schedule, bill of materials and estimate, and export PDF, DXF, XLSX or IFC. Forty-one automated rules flag common omissions before you issue.

The honest limits:

• No PLC or control-panel design. No ladder logic, no automation I/O. Houses rarely need it; industrial clients do.
• No offline mode. If the site has no connection, the plan does not open.
• Limited DWG round-trip. DWG and DXF work for exchange, not for lossless editing of complex third-party blocks. Expect clean-up on import.
• A smaller library than desktop CAD. Common residential and light-commercial symbols are covered; unusual fittings may need to be created.
• Checks are not certification. The 41 rules find inconsistencies and common mistakes. They do not certify the design to NEC, IEC, BS 7671 or any other code, and they do not replace a licensed engineer.
• The engineer remains responsible. Software does not sign drawings.

Frequently asked questions

Plan a house this afternoon. Start the free demo, see plans and limits, read the docs and browse the blog before you commit.

Sources

• NFPA 70, National Electrical Code: https://www.nfpa.org/codes-and-standards/nfpa-70-standard-development/70
• IEC 60364 series, low-voltage electrical installations: https://webstore.iec.ch/en/publication/60364-1
• IEEE 315, graphical symbols for electrical diagrams: https://standards.ieee.org/ieee/315/2352/
• OSHA electrical safety: https://www.osha.gov/electrical