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Architecture & Planning, Inc.

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Construction Drawings

The Construction Drawings are turned into the building department to obtain the building permit. The Construction Drawings are considered preliminary until the building permit is issued. While the building permit is being processed, copies of the preliminary Construction Drawings can be given to contractors to obtain bids.


Minimum Requirements for Construction Drawings
  1. Site Plan - The building site drawn to scale with a North Arrow and dimensions on all property lines. All structures new and existing, should be shown with dimensions to the property lines. Access to the property and all easements should be shown.
  2. Floor Plans - Floor Plans should have all walls dimensioned and each room labeled. Door sizes and window sizes should be called out, either adjacent to each symbol or on a schedule.
  3. Exterior Elevations - Exterior Elevations depict a flat view of each exterior side. The exterior materials and finishes should be called out. The heights of the floors should be called out in relation to the finshed ground level or grade. The highest plate height and highest roof elevation should also be called out.
  4. Building Sections - The Building Section is drawn as if a knife cut through the building and the sections were pulled apart to look through. The building structure is shown on this view as well as all materials and structural ties are called out.
  5. Interior Elevations - At the very least, all walls that have plumbing and cabinetry should be shown. Ideally, all interior walls should be shown. This will clearly exhibit the intent of the designer to the builder.
  6. Foundation Plan - The building rests firmly on the foundation. If the footings aren't wide enough, thick enough or deep enough, the building could collapse. The details should clearly call out the rebar (reinforced steel bars) size and location.
  7. Framing Plans - The framing plans refer primarilly to the floors and the roof. The builder needs to know what size of boards (joists) can span the distances required and. If the span is too long, an intermediate beam will have to be inserted to shorten the span. The size of the beam will have to be calculated to confirm that the beam is sufficient size to carry the load.

Additional sheets that can be inserted include:

  1. Title Sheet
    2. - The Title Sheet is a conveniant location to for the Sheet Index, General Notes, Project Summary, Abbreviations, Common Symbols and other general information used through out the project.
  2. Electrical Plan
    3. - For residential projects, since the electrical contractor is responsible for pulling the electrical permit, the building department may not require an electrical plan. If you are sending the plans out for bid, it is a good idea to have the electrical information included with the construction drawings. All contractors and subs should present their bids based on the same information. The electrical information can be shown on the Floor Plan, but unless the project is very small and simple, this can make the floor plan very cluttered and confusing. It is usually more advantageous to put all of the electrical information in a separate sheet along with a legend desfining all of the symbols used.
  3. Schedules
    4. - For items such as doors and windows that require more information that can reasonably put on the floor plan, a schedule is more efficient. On the floor plan, the different building components can be designated by a symbol that will refer to a specific line on the schedule. The schedule can then describe the component in terms of type, size, style, material, rating and other pertanent information. Other types of schedules can include Room, Furniture, Wall, Fixture or any other group of components that should be described in greater detail than can be adequately shown on the floor plans or details.
Some additional items that are commonly included in the Construction Document package are: