Typical Details 1

[strguy11]

Curious on how other firms have construct their typical detail libraries...

In the details themselves, do you have "user notes" that tell people the items that need to be reviewed/checked (such as weld sizes, etc) and notes to the applicability of the detail or things to consider when using?

I can see pluses and minuses of doing this sort of things. I was always taught that the detail are "a starting point" just so that things dont get re-drafted or started from scratch, however i have seen that the younger generation seems to just slap these details on the drawings without even looking at them or giving them much thought.

Curious as to how other firms handle this and if its worth going through the effort of creating notes as described. My concern is that if this was done, those items would be the only things checked, but unless the list is comprehensive (which would take so long to create), those would be the only items that are checked. Which i guess is better than nothing, but it still doesn't solve the issue....

What are you all doing?

 

[skeletron]

If it is a "Typical Detail" then you are really only benefitting from not having to draw the thing from scratch. All the callouts are pretty much fair game to change and adjust. Some firms have most of the callouts as "refer to schedule" or "refer to plans" which makes the maintenance on the detail much less. The tradeoff is that you are putting the onus on the designer/contractor to do their own coordination, which can actually be slower than just calling out the spec on the detail.

There are details that you can probably just slap on a drawing without much checking, but you would likely have already run that detail through the gauntlet of checks or it represents a sort of "capture all situation" type detail that doesn't ever really change. I have a couple notes on some of my details, but more or less that is a "point in time" type reference and not a checklist for design. It's a good idea in theory, but AutoCAD probably isn't the best medium for that and it would be better suited for a design checklist or "engineering manual" type document.

 

[strguy11]

If it is a "Typical Detail" then you are really only benefitting from not having to draw the thing from scratch. All the callouts are pretty much fair game to change and adjust. Some firms have most of the callouts as "refer to schedule" or "refer to plans" which makes the maintenance on the detail much less. The tradeoff is that you are putting the onus on the designer/contractor to do their own coordination, which can actually be slower than just calling out the spec on the detail.

There are details that you can probably just slap on a drawing without much checking, but you would likely have already run that detail through the gauntlet of checks or it represents a sort of "capture all situation" type detail that doesn't ever really change. I have a couple notes on some of my details, but more or less that is a "point in time" type reference and not a checklist for design. It's a good idea in theory, but AutoCAD probably isn't the best medium for that and it would be better suited for a design checklist or "engineering manual" type document.

Thanks. Plus if everything gets stripped out and put "x" in for placeholders, my guess is eventually people will just save thier own copies and edit them once so they dont have to again, and then we'll be in the same position.

 

[dik]

I had two different types of standard details... the ones that showed information like a stepped down footing. It could be applied to a drawing without modification.

The other type of standard detail might be a drawing sheet with an 'L' shaped stiffened slab foundation for a house. This would include all information for the foundation, including notes. The second sheet would contain the other type of standard detail showing corner reinforcing, slab sections, saw cuts information, etc.

When I got an 'L' shaped house, I would stretch the CAD drawing to the dimensions of the new house so all the dimensions worked. It would take me an hour to provide complete, 'new' house drawings for the project. In addition to the 'L' shape, I had rectangular, 'T' shaped, etc. standard house slab plans.

 

[milkshakelake]

My setup is similar to dik's, with some differences. I'm not using a fancy Revit type setup that automates these things.

1. I have a bunch of typical details that can be applied to any project of a category without modification. For example, for a cold-formed steel building, there are sections that will be always needed, like in a wall, at an opening, joist running perpendicular to wall, etc. They just need to be called out on plan.

2. Broad categories of other details that can be plucked out.


Notes to the user are not useful to me. I tried those. I think there's no shortcut except cold, hard training in what details to use, and where.

Categorizing them definitely cuts out some of the guesswork. For example, for cold-formed steel buildings, I'll have a category for parapets, framing into steel, framing into CMU, etc. Then there are weird/odd details that are hard to categorize; not much to do except try my best to lump them into a category. For one-off details that I'm fairly sure will only be used once or twice, I just don't make them typical details at all, to avoid clutter and confusion.

 

[Brad805]

I would add that you should keep in mind if you want to be helpful to the construction team or if your only interest is pushing product out the door. We are working on a project with a very well known engineering firm for what I consider a small project (< 15mil). They have 9 pages of Arch D general notes. Some of this is the typical text we are all familiar with, but most are well crafted typical details with endless charts defining how things are to be arranged. While it is technically correct, it is crap to use if you are trying to build things. I know this firm was paid dearly for their work, but I really dislike this practice given how it affects all the trades trying to figure things out.

 

[JStephen]

What I see is the use of "typical specs" that have user notes saying to "check this option, check that option" etc., and instead of the users actually reading or checking any of that, it just all gets copied into the specs and sent out for bids.

 

[lexpatrie]

Copypasta, misuse of standard details, or failure to adapt as needed for the particular project or not knowing their limits is a training/staff/supervision/mentor/QA issue. If you grade your engineers on the "met budget" criteria, this encourages them to skip any extra thinking or added care, so quality suffers as you have actively structured the work process to discourage quality in favor of hitting budget or profit margin.

If your (junior) engineers are in the cad system (say AutoCAD), you could put the various needed checks or limits on the non-plotting layers. Your senior engineers should be explaining the limitations to those details as they come up with the junior engineers. Ultimately, the EOR is on the hook for whatever negligence or mistakes are made by the people under their supervision. I added commentary to some of my own typical details (i.e. there's a comment that the typical footing shown is whatever dimensions, or that a masonry wall is 8" or 10", nominal, or some of the dimensions (on a non-plotting layer) are for frost depth, and so forth.