Frequently Asked Questions

AIM Works launches on October 15, 2026. Demos are open now. Book a Demo and your 14-day free trial starts after the walkthrough. The 60+ free calculators on this site are live today and need no account.

A mechanical design workspace for consulting engineers. You enter the design basis once, and peak loads, ASHRAE 62.1 ventilation, equipment and plant sizing, compliance checks, Design Review, and deliverables all read from the same project. An AI co-pilot drafts changes for you to approve. Every module is labeled Validated, Advisory, or Reference, and its method and limitations are disclosed.

The October 15, 2026 launch is mechanical-only: peak heating and cooling loads (RTS default), room-level modeling traced over PDF plans, ASHRAE 62.1-2019 ventilation, psychrometrics, airside equipment and cooling- and heating-plant sizing, ASHRAE 90.1-2022 and 62.1-2019 compliance scoreboards with an ASHRAE 170 reference checklist, Design Review, cost and life-cycle analysis, and deliverables (PDF engineering report, Basis of Design, sequences of operation, calculation package). Planned next: duct and pipe distribution sizing (V2, targeted early 2027), IMC / IFGC / NFPA scoreboards, Division 23 specifications, schedules, P&IDs, coordination sheets, and SI display. Electrical and full plumbing design are not in scope.

Mechanical engineers at consulting firms, especially senior engineers and firm leaders who want a consistent, reviewable design process across their projects. Engineers earlier in their careers benefit from the cited methods and the Design Review checks. Engineering judgment is always required.

Cloud-based. It runs in your browser with nothing to install, and your projects are saved to your account. You can also download a local backup file of any project.

No. AIM Works handles the design-phase work: loads, ventilation, equipment and plant sizing, compliance checks, and deliverables. For code-compliance energy modeling (ASHRAE 90.1 Appendix G, LEED), use a dedicated simulation tool.

They are separate. Every number comes from deterministic calculation engines: coded methods such as RTS, the ASHRAE 62.1 Ventilation Rate Procedure, and the 90.1 efficiency tables. The same inputs always give the same outputs. The AI (Anthropic's Claude) helps set up projects, drafts changes, and explains results and Design Review findings. It does not produce engineering results.

Nothing in your project's inputs. The AI can read your project and run a calculation the way you would. Anything that edits the project, such as adding a zone, setting design conditions, changing scope, or adding equipment, is queued as a Pending Change and does nothing until you accept it.

Yes, always. Pending Changes appear in the right rail. You can accept or reject them one at a time or all at once. Rejected changes are discarded.

Validated: the result is checked against a reference value, such as a published table or worked example, or a hand calculation from the standard's own equations, with the citation shown. Advisory: a real calculation from published methods, offered as a design starting point, with assumptions and limitations disclosed. Reference: a checklist or scoping tool keyed to your project, never presented as an engineered result. The label stays with each number in the report and the calculation package.

At launch, ventilation (ASHRAE 62.1 multi-zone) and psychrometrics carry the Validated label. Their reference checks, with reference values, AIM Works results, and differences, are published on the methodology page and re-run on every code change. The annual simulation engine meets the applicable ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 140-2023 acceptance criteria. Other modules are Advisory or Reference, with outputs covered by a regression suite.

Yes. AIM Works has been tested against the applicable ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 140-2023 building-performance simulation test cases, and all applicable cases passed or fell within the prescribed acceptance ranges. Standard 140 is used to evaluate building-performance simulation software under standardized test conditions. See our Methodology page for more detail.

Yes. Design Criteria templates set velocity limits, friction rates, safety factors, and sizing margins; a project override can tighten a code limit but never loosen it. You can also save room, load, and building templates and firm defaults. These are saved to your account. Sharing templates across several accounts at a firm isn't available at launch.

RTS (Radiant Time Series per ASHRAE HOF 2021 Ch. 18, the default) with clear-sky solar and a cooling-season month sweep, so each zone is reported at its own peak month and hour; CLTD/CLF; and Simplified. All three are altitude-corrected. These are design-day peak loads.

At launch: the ASHRAE Handbook—Fundamentals 2021, ASHRAE 62.1-2019 and 90.1-2022 (with compliance scoreboards), an ASHRAE 170 healthcare reference checklist, ASHRAE Guideline 36 for sequences of operation, and NEC 430 for motor data. IMC, IFGC, and NFPA checks are planned for a later release. References appear inline with each result.

IP at launch. SI display is on the roadmap.

AIM Works uses a usage-based AI allowance rather than limiting you to a fixed number of messages. Your subscription includes AI usage for normal project workflows. A short question uses little and an AI-assisted project setup uses more. Calculations and deterministic checks never draw on it.

You can purchase additional AI usage and continue working without changing your subscription.

Not at launch. Each account has its own AI usage allowance. Contact us for multi-seat or firm pricing.

No. The 14-day trial starts after your demo walkthrough and needs no credit card. It covers one trial project and includes AI usage for that project. Book a Demo.

Your account is paused: you can't run new calculations or use the AI, but your project data is retained. Subscribe at any time to restore access.

Standard pricing is $199 per user per month or $1,999 per user per year (save $389/year with annual billing), charged at the start of each billing period through Stripe. Contact us for multi-seat or firm pricing.

Yes, at any time from your account's billing portal. Access continues through the end of the current billing period. There are no partial refunds for unused time.

No. AIM Works does not use your project inputs, prompts, or AI outputs to train, fine-tune, or develop any AI or machine-learning model.

No. When you use an AI feature, the relevant project context is sent to Anthropic's API to generate the response. Under Anthropic's commercial API terms, Anthropic does not train its models on that data, and it keeps it only for a limited period for security and abuse prevention.

Your account, plus anyone you explicitly share a project with by email. Database row-level security restricts each project to its owner and share list, and every server-side query also filters by owner. See Security & Project Data for operator access and what isn't in place yet.

Account and project data are stored in Supabase-managed PostgreSQL in the United States, with encryption at rest provided by that managed infrastructure. All traffic to the app and its providers uses HTTPS/TLS. Payment cards go directly to Stripe; AIM Works never stores full card numbers.

Yes. Deleting a project from the Projects page removes it from the database. Copies in the provider's managed backups age out on the backup cycle, generally within about 30 days.

When you import rooms from a drawing, the PDF is held in your working session to extract rooms and zones. The extracted rooms and geometry are saved to your project, not the PDF file. If you choose an AI-assisted step on a drawing, the page content needed for that step is sent to Anthropic for that request.

You do. Under the Terms of Service, you keep all rights to the project information you enter and to the calculation results and outputs generated from it. AIM Works claims no ownership.

AIM Works is not currently SOC 2 certified, and no SOC 2 audit is under way. A controls-readiness checklist is being assembled. Our security page lists what is and isn't in place today.

Cancelling ends your subscription, not your account. Your projects stay available to export, and we don't delete project data just because a subscription ended. If you close your account, account and project data are deleted from active systems within about 30 days, per the Privacy Policy.

Yes. The 60+ free HVAC calculators need no account and have no usage limits.