Understand the team and the language

A building project is a conversation among a dozen people who have never all been in the same room, carried on through drawings, forms and short phone calls, in a vocabulary that nobody taught you. This module introduces the people, the documents that move between them, a plain way to write down who decides what, the thirty terms you will meet most often, and enough about reading a drawing set to find what you need and notice what is missing.

1. Who does what Understand

Not every project has every role, and on a small job one person may hold several. What matters is that every role that exists on your project has a name beside it, and that you know what each one does not do, because the gaps between roles are where problems live.

2. How information moves

Each role communicates through a small set of documents. Once you know what each document is for, who writes it and who it binds, most of the vocabulary falls into place.

The practical rule: decisions travel in writing, in one channel; chatter can travel any way it likes. A decision made by phone or text is restated in writing by whoever made it, the same day, and goes in the decision log.

3. The responsibility map

A responsibility map lists the tasks that matter and says, for each, who decides, who does, who is consulted before it happens, and who is informed after. Project managers call this a RACI chart; the plain words are better. One person decides each task. If two people decide, nobody does.

Two things to notice. First, the Dunmores decide more than they expected, and most of their decisions have dates. Second, the map found a gap on the first pass: nobody had been assigned to call the utility about the service upgrade. In the version above the call belongs to Stillwater, because someone asked; section 9 shows that row before and after.

4. Essential terminology

These are the thirty terms used most often in Modules 4 through 11. Each is explained again the first time a module uses it, so you do not need to memorize them now; read the list once so the words are familiar. The full glossary has the rest.

5. Reading a drawing set

A set of construction drawings is a stack of numbered sheets, each a different view of the same building. The sheets reference each other with symbols. Once you can follow the references, you can find anything in the set, and more usefully, you can notice what is not there.

What the sheets are

• Sheet index (usually on the cover or the first sheet): the list of every sheet in the set with its number and title. Read it first. It is the table of contents and the quickest way to see whether, for example, there is no electrical plan.
• Site plan: the lot, the building footprint, setbacks, utilities, drainage, trees, where the dumpster and deliveries go. Often required for additions and new buildings.
• Plans: horizontal cuts through the building about four feet above the floor, one per level, looking down. Walls, doors, windows, fixtures, cabinets, dimensions. A demolition plan shows what is removed; a reflected ceiling plan shows lights and ceiling features as if seen in a mirror on the floor.
• Elevations: each exterior face seen straight on (heights, roof lines, windows, materials); interior elevations for kitchens, bathrooms and built-ins (cabinet heights, tile extents, fixture positions).
• Sections: vertical cuts through the building, showing foundation, floor, wall and roof construction and heights. The cut line is marked on the plan with a symbol that tells you which sheet the section is on.
• Details: enlarged drawings of junctions (a window sill, the roof-to-wall flashing, a footing). Referenced from plans, sections and elevations by a circle with the detail number and the sheet number.
• Schedules: tables. A door schedule lists every door by tag number with size, type, material, hardware and fire rating. A window schedule does the same for windows, with sizes, operation, glazing and energy values. A finish schedule lists, for each room, the floor, base, walls, ceiling and any notes. A fixture schedule or lighting schedule lists products. Schedules are where "to what standard" lives.
• Structural sheets (often prefixed S): foundation plan, framing plans, beam and header sizes, connection details, the engineer's general notes.
• Mechanical, electrical, plumbing sheets (M, E, P), where they exist: on many small residential sets they do not, and the trades lay out their own work from the plans and the code. That is a thing to know, not a defect.
• General notes: paragraphs of text, usually on the cover or first sheet, that apply everywhere. They often contain the most consequential sentences in the set ("contractor to verify all dimensions in field," "all work to comply with the adopted codes," "existing conditions shown are approximate").

Scale

Drawings are drawn to scale: a stated ratio between the drawing and the building. Residential plans in the United States are commonly drawn at 1/4 inch to the foot (a quarter inch on paper is one foot in the building); details are drawn larger, at 1 inch or 1 1/2 inches to the foot. The scale is written under each drawing's title. Two warnings. First, never scale a printed drawing with a ruler to get a dimension that is not written; prints come out at odd sizes, and by convention the written dimension governs; many sets say so in the general notes. Second, "NTS" means not to scale.

How the symbols connect the sheets

• A door tag (a number in a circle or hexagon beside a door) points to the door schedule.
• A window tag (a letter or number in a different shape) points to the window schedule.
• A section marker (a line across the plan with a circle at each end, an arrow for the viewing direction, and a number over a sheet number) says "section 2 on sheet A-3 is cut here, looking that way."
• A detail callout (a circle around part of a drawing with a number over a sheet number) says "this junction is drawn larger as detail 5 on sheet A-5."
• A room name and number on the plan points to the finish schedule.
• A revision cloud (a scalloped outline) with a triangle and a number marks what changed in a revision; the revision block in the title block lists the dates.

Finding what is not drawn

This is the owner's most useful drawing-reading skill, because what is not drawn is unconfirmed: it may not be priced, and it may not be built the way you imagine. Four habits:

1. Compare the sheet index with the brief. If the brief has a bathroom and there is no interior elevation of it, tile heights and niche positions are undecided. If there is no electrical plan, nobody has drawn where the lights go.
2. Read every note and look for the hedges: "by others," "NIC" (not in contract), "existing to remain," "verify in field," "to be selected," "see spec." Each one is a boundary of the drawings' responsibility, and each one needs an owner: a person, an allowance, or a date.
3. Follow one element all the way through. Take a window: find its tag on the plan, its size on the schedule, its head and sill in a section, its flashing in a detail, its exterior trim on an elevation. If any step is missing, that is a question.
4. Look for the transitions: where new meets existing, floor meets floor, roof meets wall, inside meets outside. Transitions are among the hardest things to draw and the most commonly left out.

6. See it: a plan sheet, annotated; a specification beside a scope narrative See it

A specification beside a scope narrative

A specification is written by a designer for a contractor. It is organized by product or trade and says exactly what material, what product or standard, and how it is to be installed. A scope narrative is written by you (or with your designer) for bidders. It is organized by room and says what the drawings do not: conditions, expectations, exclusions, who supplies what. The same bathroom, in both:

You will rarely write a specification; your designer or contractor will. You will almost always write the scope narrative, and Module 7 shows what happens to bids when nobody does.

7. Practice: map your team and read one sheet Practice

Time: about 45 minutes for the map; 30 minutes for the sheet.

Part 1: the responsibility map

Open the team directory and responsibility map. First, the directory: one row per role on your project, with a name if you have one and "not yet identified" if you do not. Include the roles you have not thought about: insurance agent, attorney, surveyor, testing firm, utility. Then the map:

1. List twelve to twenty tasks that matter, drawn from your brief's unknowns register and from the Dunmores' example: each authority question, each long-lead order, each selection, calling inspections, protection, change orders, who calls the utility, who measures what.
2. For each task, write one name in "decides." One. If you want to write two, split the task until each half has one.
3. Fill "does," "consulted" and "informed." Leave a cell blank rather than guess; a blank is a finding.
4. Read down the "decides" column. Every task you decide needs a date (Module 8 will assign them). Every task a role you have not hired decides is a reason to hire them before that task comes due.
5. Read for gaps. Any task with nobody in "does" is the Dunmores' utility call: unowned until someone asks. Assign it or add it to the questions for your next conversation with the contractor or designer.

Part 2: read one sheet

If you have drawings, take one sheet, ideally a plan. If you do not, use the annotated sheet in section 6. For that sheet, write down: the sheet number and what the index says it is; the scale; every symbol that points to another sheet and where it points; every note that hedges ("verify in field," "by others," "NIC," "to be selected"); one element you followed to a schedule, a section or a detail, and whether any step was missing; and two questions the sheet raised that you will write down for the designer. Put the questions in the decision and issue log or, if they are about rules, in the verification list.

8. Your project Your project

9. Check your work Check your work

Criteria

• The directory has a row for every role in section 1, with a name or "not yet identified"; none is missing because you assumed you would not need it.
• Every task has exactly one name in "decides."
• Every blank cell has been noticed and either filled, assigned as a question, or deliberately left as "not applicable."
• Tasks you decide are flagged as needing dates.
• The sheet exercise produced at least two written questions, and none of them is phrased as a judgment ("the beam is too small") rather than a question ("is the beam on S-2 sized for the span shown on A-2?").

Worked example

One row of the Dunmores' map, before and after the first review:

Common mistakes

• Two deciders. "Architect and owner decide the window sizes" often means the windows get ordered late. Split it: the architect decides sizes per the drawings; the owner decides whether to approve the cost of a change.
• Mapping only the trades. The utility, the testing firm, the surveyor and the insurance agent have tasks with lead times. Leaving them off the map is one way a service upgrade becomes a long stall.
• Writing judgments instead of questions. An owner who tells the framer the beam is undersized has stepped across the boundary in section 5. The same concern as a written RFI to the engineer is exactly right.
• Treating "approved as noted" as approved. Read the notes; they can change a dimension.
• Assuming a small set has everything. Many residential sets have no electrical or plumbing plan. That is normal; it means the layout decisions happen in the field, and the map should say who makes them and when.

What is still unresolved

• The names in the "not yet identified" rows, and when each must be hired (Modules 4 and 7).
• The dates for every task you decide (Module 8).
• The questions your sheet reading raised, which go to the designer and come back as answers, revisions or RFIs.
• Whether your jurisdiction requires an architect's or engineer's stamp for your project, which decides whether some rows exist at all (Module 4).

10. Knowledge check and scenario

Before you move on

• My team directory has a row for every role in section 1, with a name or "not yet identified."
• My responsibility map has twelve or more tasks, each with exactly one name in "decides," and I have noted every blank cell.
• I can explain, in plain words, what an RFI, a submittal, a change order and a schedule of values are for.
• I read one drawing sheet, followed one element across the set, and wrote at least two questions phrased as questions.
• I know the difference between reading drawings and checking them, and whose job the checking is.