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Color construction drawings

David Bearss
Booster
After 10 years my inkjet plotter finally gave out and keeps giving me an endless error message. Just set up my new color plotter and am wondering with the affordability of color printing if offices are starting to incorporate color into their construction drawings. If so what kind of color standards might there be. Simple example might be grey for walls in electrical plan and colors for the electrical.
David Bearss
Archicad 18/Windows 11
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25 REPLIES 25
Beautiful work Gerald. Significantly, in that you are entirely self-taught with ArchiCAD. all i can say is wow. just; wow!
Think Like a Spec Writer
AC4.55 through 27 / USA AC27-4060 USA
Rhino 8 Mac
MacOS 14.2.1
Anonymous
Not applicable
Gerald wrote:
Thanks for your kind comments. The General Contractor who has his own framing crews did gush a little. He said doing his take-offs was a lot easier too. The only problem giving him this kind of information is that now he will expect it every time.
You just have to get paid for value. Oops, I forgot, Architects don't do that.
Anonymous
Not applicable
Gerald,

Great looking set! Contractors must love the little perspectives thrown in there... they're very descriptive.
Rod Jurich
Contributor
Dave wrote:
Gerald,

Great looking set! Contractors must love the little perspectives thrown in there... they're very descriptive.
Between you and Gerald you both set the bar very high in your documentation.
I too use colour for almost all my work.
Thanks to both of you for sharing excellent examples of how this work should be presented.
Rod Jurich
AC4.55 - AC14 INT (4204) |  | OBJECTiVE |
Great Gerald! I'm really impressed!

I would like to ask some questions on clerical matters, just to understand how things work in Canada:
a) How is the FPA area calculated? Do you include also patios in it?
b) Why do you include the Contractor's name on the building permit? Is it binding? Can't the client change his mind on who will build?
c) Are there any structural drawings? I see there is a Structural Engineer on the team
d) Are there any HVAC drawings?

Sorry for the questions, of course you can ignore them
Mac OSX 13.6.4 | AC 26 INT 3001 FULL
Gerald Hoffman
Booster
Achille wrote:


a) How is the FPA area calculated? Do you include also patios in it?
b) Why do you include the Contractor's name on the building permit? Is it binding? Can't the client change his mind on who will build?
c) Are there any structural drawings? I see there is a Structural Engineer on the team
d) Are there any HVAC drawings?


Achille,

a.) Sorry, I am not sure what you mean by FPA. If that is another acronym for GFA (Gross Floor Area) it greatly depends on what jurisdiction or area you are in. In Canada there are local By-Laws which dictate virtually everything to do with how the site is used. For example calculation of building height, building setbacks, what is included in Gross Floor Area Calcs. etc. There are no standards between cities or municipalities at all.

b.) It is not necessary or perhaps even typical to include the General Contractor on the CDs. In this case the builder is in high demand because of his quality and clients approach him to get on his schedule which right now is booked up well into 2012. I have developed a good relationship with him so that if the client has not yet chosen a designer, he will pass my name on to them for an initial meeting. They may chose someone else but in most cases I get the design contract. I would not include it if the client has come to me without a builder in mind and wishes to go to competitive bid. I should mention that in Canada most houses, perhaps as high as 90% or more, are not designed by registered Architects. The exemption of requiring an Architect is only for small Residential projects under 600 sq.m. And no, even if I put his name on the drawings it would not be binding but because I know it beforehand it is handy to have for the Building Dept. as the General Contractor is the one who calls for all the necessary inspections.

c.) Residential construction is still treated under a separate section in the Building Code from Commercial or Institutional. A lot of the structural requirements are spelled out in the Code for the typical construction method which is wood frame. For things not found in the Code a Structural Eng. is required but he will usually mark up a set of the CDs and add any details or notes as addendums. These will then get submitted with these drawing for Permit Application along with a sealed Survey. In some cases the design is complicated enough that the Eng will do his own complete set. In this case I just supply him with DWGs. I will normally send an initial design to the Structural Eng and Truss supplier for beam size confirmation or other details I need which may impact the design. The Truss suppliers in Canada also supply Eng. Floor Joists and Eng. Wood Beams. They supply Eng. Layouts for Roof Trusses and Floor Joists and all the required Engineering for those elements. It is a bit of a hodgepodge.

d.) There are no HVAC drawings required for Residential. In this case the client will be using a air source heat pump with forced air in the two upper levels and in-floor hot water heat from a small boiler for the lower floor area. Because there are lots of areas for ducts which I have designed into the lower floor ceilings, I have not in this case coordinated anything with the HVAC supplier. I will do the HVAC layouts for any designs which require any special considerations or requirements and consult with the HVAC supplier during the design process. I just had to do this recently with a modern design which had very open ceilings so all of the heating and cooling ducts were incorporated into the walls and slab so the layout was very important.

If I missed anything don't hesitate to ask.

Cheers,
Gerald
"The simplification of anything is always sensational" GKC
AC 25-4013 USA, CadImage Tools
2019 MacBook Pro 16" w/ AMD Radeon Pro 5600M GPU
OS X 11.6
2.4 Ghz 8 core i9, 64 GB RAM
27" LG 5K Monitor
Great Gerlad, thank for the replies.

a) Sorry my bad. I meant FAR. I suppose it means Floor per Area Ratio.
b) Ok so it is not compulsory to include the Contractor to get the building permit. It is impressive that the authorities ask for Construction Drawings to issue the permit. Here they ask for Final Design drawings
c)Ok so there is a vast typical construction documentation in the Code, that makes the work of the Structural Eng. less incisive. This is good for Architects. Here we always need a full detail structural analysis for every building.
d) Ok, i find it strange that such a detailed design phase doesn't include HVAC or plumbing, electrical etc, but i suppose it is common practice.

Thank you very much for the infos.
When i find the time i will upload my set of building permit drawings.
Cheers
Mac OSX 13.6.4 | AC 26 INT 3001 FULL
Gerald Hoffman
Booster
Achille,

Just to clarify the points for you. What is included in the FAR varies from one town or city to another. Each gets to decide what they want. Exterior patios are not included unless they have some kind of roof covering. In this project you were allowed 120 sq.ft. of covered entries or patios before they included it.

The Electrical Code in Canada is very explicit as to the minimum that must be included in any Residential or Commercial construction. Because the Electrician must be licenced to take out the Electrical Permit the Building Dept is assured that the minimum requirements of the code will be met. There is also an Electrical Inspection before the walls are closed in.

Even though Electrical drawings aren't required for permit I often do these as an addendum for the client to give to the Electrician to show lighting layouts and any additional outlets etc. that the client may want which are in addition to the code requirements.

The process for HVAC and Plumbing is much the same with the Permit Applications being applied for by Licenced practitioners in each trade. They are then responsible that their work complies with the Code.

I hope you do upload some drawings. That goes for anyone else as well. Maybe we need another Topic for this. I am always looking for ways to improve and like seeing what other people do.

Cheers,
Gerald
"The simplification of anything is always sensational" GKC
AC 25-4013 USA, CadImage Tools
2019 MacBook Pro 16" w/ AMD Radeon Pro 5600M GPU
OS X 11.6
2.4 Ghz 8 core i9, 64 GB RAM
27" LG 5K Monitor
KeesW
Advocate
There was an invitation (some time ago) to present examples contract drawings on this forum. I had some but couldn't condense it sufficiently for this list. Drawings shown are excellent - but how did they get so compact?
Cornelis (Kees) Wegman

cornelis wegman architects
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Gerald Hoffman
Booster
KeesW wrote:
There was an invitation (some time ago) to present examples contract drawings on this forum. I had some but couldn't condense it sufficiently for this list. Drawings shown are excellent - but how did they get so compact?
Kees, This set is almost 7 MB so not too small. I am sure there are quite a few ways to upload files to the internet and share the location with people. In this case as I had a GMail account already, it includes Google Docs which has I think 2GB of storage included free. You can upload your set of drawings and produce a link which is then viewable without access to the rest of your files. I used BlueBeam PDF software (highly recommend) to produce the PDFs.

GMail accounts are free so someone could even set up one just for this purpose or there may be an easier way to do this if others are interested.

Cheers,
Gerald
"The simplification of anything is always sensational" GKC
AC 25-4013 USA, CadImage Tools
2019 MacBook Pro 16" w/ AMD Radeon Pro 5600M GPU
OS X 11.6
2.4 Ghz 8 core i9, 64 GB RAM
27" LG 5K Monitor