The building drawings from the designers tend to stop meaning anything after they have done their part in the municipality and the contractor has seen it once. These are the same drawings which are the product of your one too many visits to your designer and many hours of discussions on what is it that you want. On the site, during construction, unnecessary guesswork by the builder, owner and contractors go on as everyone looks for answers on how to build parts of the home. After completion, the owner goes to the designer to draw the drawings again as it is built for a completion certificate. Why is it that nobody cares what the drawings say and is it just a formality and nothing else.
Proper building drawings should illustrate design intent to communicate to owners, contractors and municipalities by showing the final form the building is going to take. They are a record of design decisions with written language and graphic language and are a means to indicate dimensions and locations and indicate relationships between parts, materials and components. This is exactly what you ask for with your designer. One thing is that you get what you pay for and thus the drawings could be lesser of everything mentioned above. Drawings are important and architects develop and create drawings to record all the bits and pieces of information needed to communicate what and how to build to all the parties involved.
Is your contractor reviewing the drawings is the one thing you need to check regularly or better have your architect regularly review the project? If not you can pour your money down the drain as that is exactly what’s gonna happen later on. This is one of the major reason how projects overrun their budget by building what is not on your drawings. It is hard to remember each and every detail of a project once the documents are prepared. The purpose of documents is to provide an accurate record of all the decisions that were made while designing the project. You can’t overlook the drawings unless alternative decisions are made with the discussion between all the parties involved. You can’t build from memory rather than reviewing the drawings. The contractor and owner should know the drawings, as well as the designers, do to build or better consult the designer in things not sure of. I cannot emphasize the need of a project manager or your architect reviewing your project regularly. Money spent on them is ten folds the money saved in construction.
Building drawings are a must have and a great tool for the realization of your project, your home. You should try to get the best set of drawings from your designer and follow along referring every detail, better hire your architect for supervision and save yourself from unnecessary costs and delay as getting the best outcome possible.