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#63479 by Ted B
Mon Mar 10, 2014 2:36 pm
A long-time client has asked me to help with repairs and changes he wants to make to his now-12-year-old home. He bought the Builder's Model 10-yrs ago...and it's suffered catastrophic flashing damage at the window-flashings and behind the synthetic stucco in-general. The entire house is to be stripped to the bare studs and batt-insulation...every window ripped-out, water-damage to the framing repaired...and the entire house re-sheathed in plywood, re-flashed and new siding, trim and new windows installed. Fortunately we have a complete set of the original CAD-generated 24x36" on-paper Construction Drawings by the original architect...and they're terrible.

I'm old school-enough that I learned draughting in pencil with my French & Vierck. Our architectural school presentations had to be originals-in-ink and wash on paper per Frank DK Ching...or-else. And I used in the drafting studio ink-on-mylar overlay before my first AutoCAD-lesson in the late 1980s. I've had to redraw the entire house in Datacad and the elevations in Sketchup from-scratch. Pulling out threads of information, just to figure out what's going on and to clarify-graphically the construction set. Then I can intelligently START conceptualizing the redesign. Not a total-loss as I'll need the info for later-submittal to the local Bldg. Dept., but it's up-front time that would have been better spent sketching. I've probably spent a office-week's-worth of time so far just deconstructing the extant-plans and figuring out the internal building sections. ARRGGGGHHHHHHHH....

While I haven't found any "errors" so-far mechanically, I get a headache just trying to read them.
The entire 10-page set is in ONE lineweight and penwidth.
There are only two line types; solid and dashed.
Each page is crisscrossed with dimension witness-lines the same weight as the walls.
All the notes and dimensions are in one font, one-size and one weight; Condensed ROMANS.
The dimension strings are both exterior and interior with huge, skinny ticks wider than the walls they dimension. And there are dimensions everywhere, yet critical prime-strings are missing or discontinuous.

There're no general notes, outlined basic specs, or schedules. It looks like the window notations are Andersen, but nothing on the series or type.
There are no building sections, despite a complicated structural system and several step-downs and open-spaces.
There are no partial sections for step-downs, cathedral spaces, stairways or the porches.
There are no dimensions for the stairways, nor the step-downs on the plans
The floor and roof stick-framing is notated in a non-traditional-format. Is it the direction of framing, or it's extent?
There are no construction details, just a single generic standing wall section.

And who dimensions interior 2x4 walls drawn in a CAD system as 4" anymore?

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