Has it already been a month since I shared my floor plan rough draft? Apparently. Never fear, the project continues, even if at a snail's pace! I have been making many changes to the floor plan, digging through my old files from when I worked as a professional draftsman, reviewing building standards, and so much more re-learning after many years away from the field.
Oops! I need to update that scale to 1/4"=1'-0". The best way to find mistakes is to share a project before it's finished, right?
A section drawing is a slice through a structure or component showing internal details. In architecture, this is where we show floor and ceiling heights, and call out details in keynotes or further drawings at a larger scale. The location of the section is shown with a heavy line on the floor plan. Arrows at either end show which way the section cut is looking, and letters differentiate between different section cuts.
This is section A-A. There may not be a Section B-B. I don't know yet. The plan is simple, so probably not.
Starting from the left: the truss is a stand-in for a structural component which should be properly engineered for wind and snow loads by the truss manufacturer. The slope icon on the right side of the roof shows the rise over the run instead of an angle measure for the roof pitch. Since I have my own climate in mind, this is intended to shed snow and rain
There will be a porch or deck on this side of the building at the front door, so this is incomplete. I am showing the header above the entrance door.
I'll probably add callout bubbles for the foundation, door header, truss connections, partition wall anchors, soffit (under the eaves) and roof ridge where ventilation is planned. I'll also probably switch to a single piece of 2x8 or 2x10 lumber for the door header, since that will provide ample structure without impacting insulation as much. I just need to check some tables of standards for that.
Some old plans I once helped draw used a callout tag with a text description of the wall construction layers. These 1, 2, A, and B tags are from an experiment with that process, but I'll probably use a drawing instead. I want them for a library I can use for future projects, too.
Interior partition walls do not carry any loads from the truss, so they do not require any footing piers or a thickened slab at any of these locations. I think I'll call for the attic access hatch to be in a closet cut by this section line, so I'll show framing for that. It also cuts through an interior door, which should have a detail drawing callout as well.
I added an insulation pattern to the exterior walls, but I think I'll omit it outside of detail drawings for clarity. I can fill the window gap with a stand-in basic window section.
On the far right are elevation tags with leaders. This is more common in commercial architecture. The top of the concrete slab or main floor is set to zero, and all other measurements are taken from there. Using 100' or 10' as the baseline avoids using negative numbers below the floor height, but also requires some math.
Progress is happening, and in addition to the section drawing and planning detail drawings to add, I have also largely finished my boilerplate notes document, my title block template for all pages of the blueprints, and have a good start on a new library of callouts and tags. I've also started a proper door & window schedule with notes on the floor plan. Once I make a few more updates, I'll share a more complete set with basic elevations and updated versions of the files I have published so far.
If you work in the trades and have any advice, I'm open to input. After all, it has been cough years since I did this professionally, and I know I'm a bit rusty.
Great to see this work-in-progress update! The technical details and line drawings look super clean. Thanks a lot for all the help and guidance you share here, really appreciate it.❤️
It's a bit of a kludge, to be honest. I design in CAD as a vector drawing, print the layout as a PDF file, import the PDF into GIMP, crop it down from a full page to what I am ready to share here, and export that as a raster image (jpg or png) I can upload here.
That's quite a process! But the final result turned out really well.
what will this structure be used at? A house, a wharehouse, im curious. Also what region of the world? Im interested in the footing, and what sort of ground conditions it is designed for.
Where we live, we have to factor in seismic and flood conditions. So everything is elevated on stilts, and the stilts have wide "feet" to stabilize the house in case of earthquake
I'm in the inland northwest of the US near Spokane, Washington. No major seismic concerns. Unless you build near rivers, flooding isn't a worry. Frost depth is 18-24" typically. Snow loads on the roof are a real concern, as is wind, but no hurricanes or tornadoes.
It is funny how sharing a draft always makes those scale errors jump right out at you. Dusting off old drafting standards definitely sounds like a rabbit hole once you get back into it.
Ummmm… all the numbers on the right are incorrect.
No, they are just confusing, because we do not know where 0' is.
0 is usually the top of the slab. And, after the foundation is poured, you only want to know how far off the slab everything is.
We do not usually dimension the bottom of windows. Only the top. Because the contractors will put the bottom in to fit the window.
The "sill plate" is the thing that connects the wall to the foundation. Not the bottom of the window.
But, all of this could be English, and then i am messed up.
Like I said, this is a WIP. Copy/pasted text is not all fully updated. I am showing incomplete steps in the process while I am relearning. I didn't even have the scale right in the section view label for my viewport layout.
When I worked in commercial architecture, the floor started at 100', not 0', but I may decide to set it at 0 instead. The fun part about building my own templates from scratch is I can do it my way. The hard part is I have to decide what my way is.
I don't plan to ever have 3 levels of basement below grade to signal to the contractor.
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.
I did a quick double-check. The rough sill is the bit at the bottom of window framing, while the bottom plate in wall framing might be called the "mudsill" for this slab-on-grade plan, but that usually refers to the plate between a stem wall and the floor platform framing. "Sill" itself is just an old word for a horizontal load bearing structural piece in general, whether a windowsill or mudsill. I will clarify the terms and add (varies) to cover all eventualities. I may also skip calling out the ledger height because that can also vary depending on the door vendor, although 6'-8" door assembies do typically call for a 6'-10" rough opening, that may vary.
"May the Lord protect you, Mr. Jacob. You are a talented architectural draftsman, in addition to your activity as a writer and a sponsor of promising talents. What you have shared with us is true creativity. May your steps be crowned with success."
Would you like me to help you write this as a direct reply to his post on the platform, or add any extra