How Does Your Building Department Handle Illegible Architectural Drawings at Final Inspections

Architectural drawings, crucial for ensuring construction adheres to approved designs and building codes, often succumb to significant wear and tear throughout the construction process. By the time a project reaches its final inspection, these important documents may be stained, marked up, torn, or even missing pages, posing serious challenges for building officials.

The Problem

On any construction site, architectural drawings, formerly known as blueprints, are fundamental. They guide construction and confirm compliance with local codes. However, due to daily use, exposure to elements, accidental spills, and annotations made by various trades, these documents can become nearly unreadable. When it comes time for final inspections, the integrity and legibility of these drawings are critical. If the documents are not in a usable state, it can complicate the inspection process, potentially leading to delays, misunderstandings, and compliance issues.

Survey of Current Practices

Given the widespread nature of this issue, it is beneficial to understand how different building departments handle such situations. Considerations might include:

• Backup Copies: Do inspectors insist on having clean, official copies of the blueprints on hand during inspections?
• Digital Documentation: How prevalent is the use of digital devices and cloud storage for accessing up-to-date drawings?
• Pre-Inspection Requirements: Are there protocols that require contractors to provide legible copies of all documents before the final inspection is conducted?

A survey could be conducted across multiple jurisdictions to gather data on these practices, providing a broad perspective on common strategies and innovative solutions.

Technological Solutions

Technology offers potential solutions to the problem of deteriorating physical documents. Many building departments are transitioning to digital blueprints, which can be accessed on tablets and laptops right on the construction site. These digital versions can be updated in real-time, ensuring that all parties have access to the most current plans without the physical wear and tear. However, the adoption of such technology varies widely depending on the department's budget, the complexity of projects, and the tech-savviness of the staff.

Case Studies

Several building departments have pioneered methods for dealing with this challenge:

• A department in California requires all contractors to submit digital copies of their plans before the final inspection. These are accessed via department-issued tablets.
• Another in Florida has implemented a policy where the building official reviews the project documentation online ahead of the final site visit, ensuring that any discrepancies are addressed beforehand.

Call to Action

Building officials and department heads are encouraged to consider the benefits of updating their policies regarding the management of construction documents. Sharing strategies and successes can help improve practices across the board, leading to more efficient and effective building inspections.

 

[e hilton]

Don’t have an answer, but we kept one copy in the job office that didn’t go out, it was the record set.

 

[Yankee Chronicler]

We always (as prescribed by the codes) keep a copy of the approved construction documents in our office as well as returning an approved set to the contractor. In addition, the approved drawings are scanned into Municity (the on-line permitting system we use). Each inspctor has a cellular-enabled tablet, and can access the scanned drawings through the tablet if necessary.

 

[ICE]

The plans were illegible sometime prior to a final inspection. I've rejected footing inspections due to problems with plans. When the plans are a wreck, there’s not much of an argument about not performing an inspection however, it has to be a real hot mess. There’s plenty of projects that have plans that I can successfully inspect without plans. There’s been plenty of projects that had so many corrections before I got to the plans that I didn’t get to the plans.

 

[Yankee Chronicler]

The plans were illegible sometime prior to a final inspection.

We try not to let that happen. We get a LOT of arguments when we reject construction documents during the application/plan review stage because they are incomplete or illegible. Sometimes (bit not always) pointing out that it's cheaper and easier to move lines on a sheet of paper than it is to tear out and rebuild construction on the site gets the point across -- but a disappointing number of applicants can't (or won't) even understand that.

And then there are always the small contractors who wad the approved drawings up and stuff them under the seat of their pickup truck ...

 

[Yikes]

It looks like this thread is about plans that were legible at time of permit, but damaged during construction.

Not uncommon for the top sheet of plans to get totally trashed, edges worn off, torn, coffee stains, etc. Most of the contractors I work with immediately scan the permit set and put it away for the inspector’s use only. They make a copy for the superintendent’s use.

Every jurisdiction I’ve worked with stamps at least 2 sets of plans: a field set and a record set; often times there’s a 3rd set for the county tax assessor.
By the time the end of the project is reached, the inspectors are usually familiar enough with the project that even if it looks like the photo in the original post, they will probably sign off. If a new inspector came aboard and could not read the plans, then I suppose the city could require the contractor to get a bonded reprographics company to make a new copy from the city’s own record set of plans.