A 67-sheet electrical renovation: every lighting type exact, and the four things a reviewer has to fix
An electrical subcontractor's estimator brought a full facility renovation set to Aginera. We ran it and checked the takeoff against hand counts from the drawings — what matched, what was close, and what a reviewer has to catch.
16 min
19 sheets read from a 67-sheet set
9 / 9
lighting types exact — 274 fixtures
166
fixtures redrawn on photometric sheets, counted once
4
priced errors a reviewer has to remove
Where electrical takeoffs usually go wrong
Not on the easy sheets. This set has three photometric plans that redraw the 101 high-bay and 65 emergency fixtures from the lighting plan — count them naively and you price them three or four times over. The panel schedules are pictures, not text. Most of the switchgear is existing and stays. And every electrical sheet carries a background architectural label repeated dozens of times that looks like a device tag to any tool reading text blindly.
On this run, the high-bay and emergency fixtures were counted once — not once per sheet — and matched the luminaire schedule. The existing main distribution panel, lighting panel and panel sections were kept as existing and left unpriced; the new 45 kVA transformer, drawn on two sheets, was priced once. The background label produced no rows.
Hand count vs Aginera
✓ exact · ≈ within a few percent on untagged symbols · ✗ wrong
Lighting — lighting plan and luminaire schedule
| Item | Hand count | Aginera | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type W6 high-bay luminaire | 101 | 101 | ✓ |
| Type EM3 emergency luminaire | 65 | 65 | ✓ |
| Type A1 linear fixture | 43 | 43 | ✓ |
| Type A1E (emergency / night-light) | 20 | 20 | ✓ |
| Type CL1 ceiling linear | 15 | 15 | ✓ |
| Type CL1E (emergency) | 9 | 9 | ✓ |
| Type X1 exit sign | 10 | 10 | ✓ |
| Type EM4 exterior egress | 6 | 6 | ✓ |
| Type P1 exterior wall-mounted | 5 | 5 | ✓ |
Site lighting
| Item | Hand count | Aginera | |
|---|---|---|---|
| SP1 site pole luminaire | 11 | 11 | ✓ |
| SP1W building-mounted luminaire | 17 | 17 | ✓ |
| SP2 site pole luminaire | 5 | 6 | ✗ |
Power, technology and distribution
| Item | Hand count | Aginera | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Receptacles (duplex, GFI, weatherproof — untagged symbols) | about 139 | 133 | ≈ |
| Data outlets (technology plan) | about 84 | 87 | ≈ |
| Electric water coolers | 2 | 2 | ✓ |
| Dock door controller connections | 4 | 4 | ✓ |
| Instantaneous water heater connection | 1 | 1 | ✓ |
| 45 kVA transformer (drawn on two sheets) | 1 | 1 | ✓ |
| New pre-wired load center | 1 | 1 | ✓ |
What a reviewer has to fix
Four priced errors, and two groups held for confirmation. Each row carries the sheet it came from, so a reviewer checks these against one sheet each instead of re-counting the set.
- 1152 lay-in fixtures from the architectural ceiling plan. The reflected ceiling plan shows the same light fixtures, and its legend says "2X4 lay-in fixture — see electrical". Those rows duplicate the lighting plan and have to come out.
- 2Fire alarm devices priced. The power and technology plans state that fire alarm modifications are the responsibility of the fire alarm contractor. The 50 audio/visual stations, pull stations and annunciator belong out of the electrical price.
- 3Three drain cleanouts on the site plan. Plumbing symbols on an electrical site sheet, read as electrical devices.
- 4One extra SP2 site pole. 6 instead of 5 on the site lighting plan.
- 5Held for confirmation, not priced. Switches (15) and card readers (6) were counted but left in review rather than priced — a reviewer confirms them or leaves access control to its own scope.
We fix this class of error in the engine, not per customer: each correction above becomes a test the next release has to pass on our drawing corpus.
Run the same check on a set you have already estimated
We run it and go through our takeoff against yours, line by line. You see the matches and the misses on your own work before you decide.
Questions
Who is the customer?
An electrical subcontractor whose estimator uses Aginera. We do not name customers or show their drawings without written permission, so this page describes the set and the numbers only.
How were the counts checked?
By reading the drawings: fixture marks on the lighting plan, the luminaire schedule on the photometric sheet, site lighting on the site plans, symbols on the power and technology plans, and the panel and transformer details. Receptacles and data outlets are untagged symbols, so the hand counts for those are approximate.
Why show the mistakes?
Because an estimator reviews every takeoff before it is priced, and the useful question is what that review has to catch. On this set it was four specific priced errors, each tied to the sheet it came from.
Can we run this on our own drawings?
Yes. The pilot is exactly this exercise on a set your team has already estimated: our takeoff next to yours, line by line.
Production run of October 13, 2026. Customer, owner, project and location withheld; drawings not shown. See also AI electrical takeoff software.
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