Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

As I have arrived at the design office the Mechanical section has just got a new design program called IES (https://www.iesve.com/). Until now they have been using a manufacturer specific free to use program which obviously comes with some significant restraints, mainly that you can only use that manufacturers equipment. It seems they have been using this for some time to estimate design loads for the LEED reports which seems very inefficient to me!

I have been tasked with learning how to use IES, teaching it to the rest of the section and using it to complete the Mechanical 65% design for a fire station. One of the main focuses of using IES is that it will generate the LEED report based on what I design in the program, perfect for hitting my sustainable development competency! Appropriately the IES tagline is “Make every element of your building sustainable”.

So has anybody had any experience with IES? If so, any pointers on some good tutorials?

Is IES any good? How does it perform compared to other programs anyone has experience with?

Also, what design programs are people using outside of AutoCAD and Revit?