MEP Review

Walk an MEP set through eight coordination axes, in the order a set actually gets checked, and write the result to a dated file that says what was compared against what.

This is the architect's read on someone else's drawings. It finds the places where two sheets disagree about the same cubic foot of building, and it finds them by reading, not by modelling.

Scope and limits — read first

What this does. Takes an MEP set together with the architectural and structural drawings it is supposed to fit inside, compares them across eight axes, and writes a review that names the two sheets behind every conflict.

What this does not do.

• It does not know any dimensions. No plenum depth, no shaft size, no equipment room area, no clearance in front of a panel, no duct velocity, no ventilation rate, no separation between an intake and an exhaust. Every one of them comes from the drawings or from you. That is the review, not a gap.
• It does not run clash detection. There is no model here. It reads drawings, which means it finds conflicts a section or a dimension reveals and misses conflicts that only a model would show. Say so in the report rather than implying coverage the method does not have.
• It does not size or select equipment, calculate loads, or check a system against an energy or ventilation standard.
• It is not a code check. Rated shaft enclosures, required exhaust, and fire damper locations belong to code-compliance-review and to the AHJ.
• The Engineer of Record designs the systems. This review raises questions for that engineer. It does not answer them on the engineer's behalf.

What you need before starting. The MEP sheets, the architectural background and reflected ceiling plan at the same revision, the structural framing plan, the project phase, and the clearances your project or your consultant requires.

Workflow

Step 1. Bootstrap if needed

If docs/mep-reviews/ does not exist, create it along with docs/mep-reviews/index.md holding a single heading and nothing else.

Step 2. Anchor the set

Before looking at anything, record and repeat back:

• Project name, phase, and the area or level under review.
• Every sheet in play, by number, with its revision date.
• Which disciplines are present and which are missing.
• Whether the architectural background and the MEP sheets carry the same revision date.

Revision dates decide whether a conflict is real. Two sheets at different dates disagreeing is not a finding, it is a stale background. Say which it is before writing anything down. If the dates differ, the whole review is provisional and the report has to say so at the top.

Ask for anything missing. Do not proceed on an assumed sheet.

Step 3. Apply the eight axes

Work them in order. Each axis produces one of three results: a finding, a pass with the source of the limit named, or unverified because the drawing or the value needed for it was not supplied. Never a fourth.

1. Shafts and risers. Count them. Check each one runs floor to floor without jogging into a beam or a stair, and that it terminates somewhere: a roof penetration, a louvre, a mechanical room. Compare the shaft as drawn on the architectural plan against what the MEP sheets route through it. A shaft that carries four services on one floor and three on the next is the finding.

2. Ceiling and plenum depth. Take the depth from the section, not the schedule. Add up what has to occupy it at the tightest point: structure, duct including insulation and hangers, sprinkler main, lighting, conduit, and the clearance between them. Check the worst location, not the typical one. The typical section is drawn where everything fits.

3. Equipment rooms. Area, clear height, and the door. Then the route: how the largest single piece of equipment gets in on day one, and how it gets out when it is replaced. A room reachable only through a finished corridor with a turn in it is a finding even when the room itself is large enough.

4. Horizontal distribution. Follow the mains from the source to the far end of the floor. Look at every point where a duct or pipe crosses a beam, a girder, a shear wall, or another main. Note where the drawing shows a penetration and where it simply shows the duct passing through structure that is not on the MEP sheet.

5. Intake, exhaust, and flues. Where the building takes air in, where it puts air out, and what is near each. Check them against operable windows, occupied terraces, the property line, and each other. Ask for the separation the project is working to before measuring anything; a relief hood near an intake is a finding against that separation, not against a number this skill supplies.

6. Service entries and metering. The utility side: where power, water, gas, and sewer enter, where the meter, transformer, or backflow assembly sits, and what clearance the utility demands around it. Utility clearances come from the utility, not from this skill and not from the code.

7. Maintenance access. Every valve, damper, filter, VAV box, and cleanout against the ceiling type below it. Access panels in a hard ceiling have to be drawn on the reflected ceiling plan to exist. If they are not on the RCP, they are not in the project.

8. Document coordination. MEP against architectural background, against the RCP, and against the structural framing plan. Then schedules against plans: a unit on the schedule that is not on a plan, a unit on a plan that is not on the schedule, a tag that does not match. Finish with revision dates across the set.

Step 4. Write the review

Filename:

docs/mep-reviews/<YYYY-MM-DD>-<slug>-mep.md

Slug rule: lowercase, [^a-z0-9-] removed, 40 characters maximum, from the project plus the level or area reviewed. Suffix -<n> if the date and slug already exist.

Every finding carries three things: the two sheets that disagree, what each one shows, and the dimension or clearance the conflict is measured against together with where that value came from. A finding with no value behind it is an observation, and it goes in a separate list under that name.

The head of the review states the sheets and their revision dates. The foot states how many axes were checked and how many were unverified.

Step 5. Update the index

Append one line to docs/mep-reviews/index.md:

- <YYYY-MM-DD> — <project>, <area> — <n> findings, <n> unverified — <filename>

A list rather than a table, on purpose. Nothing here has to stay aligned.

Step 6. Report

Give the counts: axes checked, findings raised, observations without a value behind them, axes unverified. List the unverified axes with what each one needs to close. Close with:

Every dimension in this review came from you or from the drawings. Unverified axes were not checked at all, and reading drawings does not find what only a model would show.

Rules

• Never supply a dimension. Not a plenum depth, not a clearance, not a room size, not from memory and not from a manufacturer's page. Ask, or mark the axis unverified.
• Name both sheets in every finding. A conflict that cannot be traced to two documents is an opinion.
• Check revision dates before calling anything a conflict. Different dates mean a stale background until proven otherwise.
• An axis missing its drawing is unverified, not passed. Silence about an axis reads as a pass to whoever gets the review.
• Route anything about rated enclosures, required exhaust, or damper locations to code-compliance-review rather than answering it here.

Anti-patterns

• Reading the typical section and calling the plenum clear. The tight spot is somewhere else, and it is the only spot that matters.
• Treating a plenum as empty because the structure is not drawn on the MEP sheet. Absence from one discipline's drawing is not absence from the building.
• Quoting a clearance from memory because it "is standard". Clearances vary by utility, by manufacturer, by jurisdiction, and by the equipment actually specified.
• Calling a conflict on two sheets at different revision dates.
• Reporting eight axes when three of the drawings were never supplied.
• Sizing anything. The moment the review proposes a duct size it has stopped being a review and started being an engineering opinion nobody asked for.

Resources

This skill bundles no reference files, and that is deliberate: every value it would hold is project-specific or jurisdiction-specific.

Related tools in the catalog:

• code-compliance-review for rated assemblies, required exhaust, and the life-safety side of the same drawings.
• constructability-review for the builder's read on the same set.
• senior-mep-engineer for a risk-flagged gut check rather than a full axis walk.