Based in Englewood, Florida, Thornburgh Engineering is a one-person firm run by Tom Thornburgh, PE. With over 55 years’ engineering experience, Mr. Thornburgh designs mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire protection systems for commercial and industrial projects.
Mr. Thornburgh has been a Design Master Mechanical user since 2005 and a Design Master Electrical user since 2006. He originally used both programs as a consulting engineer with other engineering and architectural firms. Currently he uses Design Master whenever possible, on nearly every project he works on.
“I use the Design Master Electrical and Design Master Mechanical packages because they’re great time-savers and they eliminate a lot of errors,” Mr. Thornburgh states. “For automation of load calculations and for drawing ductwork, for example, Design Master Mechanical is fantastic.
“It’s the same with Design Master Electrical: you can add a bunch of receptacles to a drawing, quickly circuit the whole group and then automatically generate the line work—all in one fell swoop.
“Changes are so easy to make and so quickly done in both packages as well,” Mr. Thornburgh continues. “I appreciate that because in this day and time we often end up making a lot of changes to the designs.”
“Design Master Electrical also automates a lot of calculations that are now required in the state of Florida, such as voltage drop and fault current analysis,” Mr. Thornburgh points out. “More and more of the local plan examiners are requiring those things, so it’s great that they’re available as options within Design Master Electrical.”
“The more I use the Design Master packages the more I learn about them,” reflects Mr. Thornburgh. “I’ve enjoyed dealing with Design Master support and don’t hesitate to call when something comes up.”
“They’re always very, very helpful and very quick to respond. Just last week I reported an issue and they sent a patch right back to me. They always have a solution,” Mr. Thornburgh reports.
“These firms tend to hire draftsmen to do their drawings. But with Design Master an engineer can create a drawing or make a change faster and easier than they can explain to a draftsman what they want, let alone have them sketch it,” Mr. Thornburgh notes.
“I’m very pleased with the software—and it’s definitely a bargain. I can’t imagine being without it,” Mr. Thornburgh concludes.
