AI Chat

HVAKR AI answers HVAC and product questions, and it also does work. Open inside a project, it can read the project, run the calculator, take off spaces, group zones, place equipment, route and size ducts, and generate exports. The larger changes stop for your approval first — see Approving Actions.

Accessing AI Chat

AI Chat is available on plans with AI access. Without it, the AI entry points are hidden.

From a Project

While working in a project:

1. Click AI in the top toolbar (or press I)
2. The AI drawer opens on the right
3. The drawer header has Open in full screen, Chat History, and New Chat

The separate Chat button in the toolbar is for project comments and collaboration — not AI Chat.

Full-Screen View

For a full-screen chat outside a project:

1. From the home screen, click HVAKR AI in the left sidebar
2. An empty chat opens with prompt suggestions above the composer
3. Use Show History in the header to open the conversation sidebar, or New Chat to start over

When a chat is tied to a project, the project name appears as a tag in the header. Click it to reopen the same conversation inside that project.

What HVAKR AI Can Do

The available actions depend on where the chat runs. The chat is either project-scoped (opened from inside a project, or created one during the conversation) or home-scoped.

In Any Chat

• Answer questions — about HVAC concepts, ASHRAE procedures, your results, or how HVAKR works. It reads this documentation site and the HVAKR knowledge base, and cites the page it answered from.
• Search your projects and templates — find a project by name or content, or find space, envelope, and system templates to import.
• Read attachments — PDFs, Excel, Word, CSVs, and images on vision-capable models.
• Navigate the app — jump you to the page it is talking about.
• Draw charts — line, bar, area, and donut charts, plus a psychrometric chart, rendered inline in the conversation.
• Search the web — only when Web search is on in chat settings.

From the Home Screen

Without a project open, HVAKR AI can create a project. Describe the building in plain language:

“Create a 10,000 sq ft office building in Chicago with 20 offices, 3 conference rooms, and a break room”

Attach floor plan PDFs and it uploads them to the new project’s sheet library as part of the same request. Once the project exists, the conversation becomes project-scoped and the actions below become available.

Inside a Project

Ask for	What HVAKR AI does
Project data	Reads spaces, zones, systems, envelope, weather, and settings
Load calculations	Runs the HVAKR calculator; it can also test a change and report the impact without saving it
A project review	Checks structural completeness, calculation sanity, and design quality, and reports findings
Floor plan upload	Uploads attached PDFs to the sheet library, runs OCR, and places sheets on levels
Space takeoff	Detects spaces from placed sheets and satellite maps, and can assign envelope types in the same run
Zoning	Groups spaces into zones
Project edits	Changes any project data — space properties, envelope assignments, airflow overrides, settings
Equipment	Places central and terminal units
Duct design	Routes ducts and sizes them against your duct types
Reports and schedules	Generates a PDF report or CSV schedule and waits for it to finish — see Reports

Space takeoff run from the chat writes the detected spaces straight into the model once you approve it. It does not use the include/exclude review of the Auto Takeoff Spaces toolbar action.

On long procedures — a project built end to end from floor plans, for example — HVAKR AI stops at each stage to confirm the result before it continues.

Example Prompts

Questions:

• “What is the difference between sensible and latent load?”
• “How does ASHRAE 62.1 calculate ventilation?”
• “Why does this space have the highest load?”
• “Explain the peak hour for Zone 1”
• “What space type should I use for a server room?”

Work:

• “Detect the spaces on level 2 and group them into zones”
• “Set the ceiling height to 10 ft in every office”
• “What happens to the cooling load if I switch the glazing to a double-pane low-e window?”
• “Check this project and tell me what’s missing”
• “Generate the load calculation report”

Composer Controls

Control	What it does
Paperclip	Attach files. Hover for the supported types and size limit of the current model. You can also paste a screenshot.
Gear	Chat settings — Mode (Ask or Auto) and the Web search toggle
Model	Pick the model for this chat, or leave it on Auto and HVAKR picks one for the task
Credit ring	Share of this month’s included credits used. Hover for the credits used in this chat.
Up arrow / Stop	Send the message. While the AI is working, the same button becomes a red Stop.

Web search is off by default. The model list groups models as Intelligent, Fast, and Cheap, with a relative cost tag on each. If your Enterprise organization requires zero data retention (ZDR) models under Settings > Organization > AI Model Access, the list tags those models ZDR.

Approving Actions

Mode controls whether HVAKR AI pauses before it makes a large change:

• Ask (default) — the actions listed below stop for your approval
• Auto — the AI runs them without stopping

In Ask mode, these actions request approval: space takeoff, zoning, equipment placement, duct routing, duct sizing, and any project edit that deletes data or changes more than one field. A card appears above the composer with the proposed change and Approve / Deny buttons. If an approved action is interrupted before it finishes, the card comes back with a single Retry.

Approval is not a gate on every write. A single-field edit — renaming a space, setting one property — applies without a prompt, as do sheet uploads and export generation.

After the AI edits project data, the response ends with a N changes applied callout. Expand it to see exactly what changed, then click Keep or Undo. The callout covers project-data edits; it does not roll back a takeoff, zoning pass, equipment placement, or duct run — approve or deny those on the card instead.

HVAKR AI also asks plain questions when a choice is yours to make — the options appear as buttons above the composer, with an Other option for a typed answer.

Plan

On multi-step work, HVAKR AI keeps a Plan panel above the composer. It shows each step with its status, a completed/total count, and the step it is on now. Expand it to see the whole list. Clear the plan with the ✕ button once the AI has stopped.

Conversation History

• In the project drawer, open the Chat History menu from the header icon
• In the full-screen view, toggle Show History to open the history sidebar

Chats are listed most recent first. Click one to resume it, or use its ⋯ menu to Rename or Delete it. New Chat starts a fresh conversation.

Response Actions

Every finished response has Copy, Good Response, and Bad Response buttons. Ratings go to the HVAKR team as feedback. They do not train a model and do not change the answers you get next.

Credits

Each turn spends AI credits from your organization’s pool. Included credits refill monthly; on-demand credits cover the overflow. See Organization Settings for balances and spending limits.

Limitations

Verify Before You Rely On It

• Check important numbers against the calculator output
• Apply your own engineering judgment
• Read the standard directly for compliance questions

You Stay In Control

• Leave Mode on Ask so the larger actions stop for approval
• Use Undo on the applied-changes callout when a project edit is not what you wanted
• Press Stop to end a run in progress
• Smaller edits apply without a prompt, so read the response before moving on

Best Practices

Be Specific

Instead of: “Help with my project” Try: “Why is the conference room heating load so high?”

Provide Context

Name the space, zone, or system you mean, and say what you already tried.

Attach the Source

Attach the floor plan, spec, or schedule instead of describing it — the AI reads the file directly.