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Obviously, having instructions when building a new home is essential. However, because a house is a complex structure made of many different systems, your instructions (or plans) need to include many different drawings. A typical set of plans will include 30 to 50 pages of specific instructions on how to build your house. The plans first include a set of preliminary designs or prelims. After these prelims are approved, the engineer prepares the working drawings for constructing the house.
 | Architects and engineers often draw plans in quarter-inch scale, meaning that each 1/4 inch on paper represents 1 foot in real life. You can read the drawing measurements easily with a ruler by measuring any line and dividing the number of inches by 4 to understand how many feet long any straight line represents. |
Prelims — Floor plans, site plans, elevations
The first designs will be rough sketches and drafts drawn by an architect or designer. They may include scratch drawings and renderings, which are an artist's version of what the house may look like. If you buy plans from a book or online, you can skip the rough sketch phase of the process. Plan software provides a neat way to try different floor plans with ease.
As soon as you and your architect, if you're using one, have made some basic decisions on style and size, the architect will draft preliminary drawings. These drawings are necessary to show the house in three dimensions. The prelims will be used primarily for making initial decisions, such as room placement and size, with your architect, as well as preparing for the initial design approval process. Creating these prelims is an ongoing process of reviewing drawings and making changes. If you're buying plans, the plan company provides you with the prelims. If you're using a software program, the prelim creation is your responsibility.
These prelims consist primarily of three basic elements:
- Floor plans (see Figure 1): Each floor of the house has a layout that shows the following:
• The location of each room
• The placement of each door and window
• The location of other amenities, such as stairs, fireplaces, closets, and major fixtures such as kitchen cabinets and showers
- Site plan: The site plan shows how the house and other buildings such as the garage will sit on your lot (see Figure 2). The site plan explains the position of the house and the direction it faces. It also specifies how far it sits from the street and neighbors' houses based upon the required setbacks.
- Elevations: The elevation drawings illustrate what your house's exterior will look like from the ground up on each side (see Figure 3). Most elevation sets show the house from all four directions. The plans illustrate exterior windows and doors as well as any ornamentation in the design. From these plans, you can measure the height of the structure and its elements.
Courtesy of Tecta Associates Architects, San Francisco
Figure 1: A floor plan shows the layout of the house.
Courtesy of Tecta Associates Architects, San Francisco
Figure 2: A site plan shows how the house will sit on the lot.
Courtesy of Tecta Associates Architects, San Francisco
Figure 3: An elevation drawing shows the exterior of the house.
Working drawings: The how-to-build-it papers
After the prelims have been finalized and approved, the architect and engineer create working drawings. Working drawings are a series of individual papers giving explicit instructions on how to build the house. They give you every detail for construction including where to put the plugs and switches as well as the number of rafters in your roof. Furthermore, the working drawings include all the technical specifications and requirements for engineering and compliance with building codes. Each of the systems in the house is specified in the working drawings.
| In addition to the floor plans, site plan, and elevations, a typical set of working drawings has individual drawings for each structural system of the house. These individual working drawings |
- Provide all the technical specifications necessary for contractors and subcontractors (subs) to bid on your project. Each different section goes out to a different craftsman so they can determine the time and materials necessary to complete the project.
- May include some variations if you're working with a design-build firm. Because the same firm will be handling both the design and building process, it may combine or reorder some of the technical pages to fit its process.
- May contain other pages that detail specific construction of parts that require extra detail such as unique staircases or particular architectural elements.
- May also include pages specifying energy calculations where required by the building department.
Working drawings generally include the following documents drawn in equal scale:
- Architectural plans: Site plan, floor plan, elevations, cross sections, wall sections, schedules of materials, and details
- Civil plans: Site plan, grading plan, and details
- Electrical plan: Outlets, switches, and lighting plans
- Landscape plan: Landscaping layout, irrigation plans, schedules, and details
- Mechanical plans: Furnace and ducting plans and details
- Plumbing plan: Plumbing riser plans and isometrics, and details
- Structural plans: Foundation plan, framing plan, cross sections, and details
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