Well, commercial buildings usually have a lot of below grade work.
Basements and sub-basements. Parking structures and services.
House building contractors usually aren't so savvy. They want to know how tall the wall is. "do i get 8' studs or 9'?"
And the height of the house is usually done on the (can't remember word) the front-side-back exterior drawings. Because that information is only useful to the landscape architect and the city council. (which don't care about the internals of the house at all)
(and you really want your three levels of basement to not be on the plans, so that the city doesn't know about them :-p )
When I did work on residential projects, the elevation drawings were used to identify finish materials, utility meters, and special instructions for siding, e.g. shake shingle siding in the gables above a band of trim. The section showed heights.
yep, yep and yep
However, it was the one spot i placed the overall height to ridge.
The elevations went to the
neighborhood watchi mean local "prettiness" gastapo.And, the only number they cared about was total building height.
The contractors didn't care about that number, at all. They just needed to know, how tall the walls were. The truss/roof would take care of itself.
Ugh. I did some work once near a local airstrip where heights were critical because there were specific airspace roghts-of-way for landing aircraft, but other than that, it hasn't had to get magic permission anywhere. I have a deep loathing for HOAs and city planning officials from general experience.
And rightfully so!
Honest politicians just steal your money.
Those bastards steal your time, thinking that you're a retired person with nothing but time on their hands.