Schedules / Standard Details / Drawing Notes

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tmccabe84

Member
Location
Denver, CO
Hey everyone, I am new to the forum, but I'm sure I will be using it quite a bit from here on out. I just started a position for an A/E design firm in which I am the first Electrical Engineer. This means that I will essentially be developing all of the procedures and templates that will be used as the department (hopefully!) grows. Along with developing electrical CAD and Revit standards, this is the most daunting task at hand right now. Rather than generating everything from scratch, it would be nice to have a source to go to that would at least get me started in the right direction. I have found some websites that have standard drawing notes and drawing specs, but it's hard to know if they can be trusted or not (from a legal standpoint). Does anyone know of any resources where I can find templates for schedules / standard details / drawing notes that are not copyrighted or proprietary? Free would be preferred, but I would be willing to pay if it makes sense. I'm hoping some of you in this forum have been where I am, so if you have any advice, that would be much appreciated as well!
 

Knightryder12

Senior Member
Location
Clearwater, FL - USA
Occupation
Sr. Electrical Designer/Project Manager
Hey everyone, I am new to the forum, but I'm sure I will be using it quite a bit from here on out. I just started a position for an A/E design firm in which I am the first Electrical Engineer. This means that I will essentially be developing all of the procedures and templates that will be used as the department (hopefully!) grows. Along with developing electrical CAD and Revit standards, this is the most daunting task at hand right now. Rather than generating everything from scratch, it would be nice to have a source to go to that would at least get me started in the right direction. I have found some websites that have standard drawing notes and drawing specs, but it's hard to know if they can be trusted or not (from a legal standpoint). Does anyone know of any resources where I can find templates for schedules / standard details / drawing notes that are not copyrighted or proprietary? Free would be preferred, but I would be willing to pay if it makes sense. I'm hoping some of you in this forum have been where I am, so if you have any advice, that would be much appreciated as well!

Welcome to the forum tmc. I was in your situation about 7 years ago although I am not an electrical PE, I did help a PE start up a new E for an existing M&P firm. We had to make everything from scratch, just what the PE wanted which was fine by me. We looked at some drawings from other firms that the M&P business had from previous jobs and kind of took things that we (he) liked and we made are own. As far as drawing notes and such we just came up with our own and after a few projects we had some standard notes that we really liked.

I have found one link pretty helpful....http://www.cfm.va.gov/til/sDetail.asp#23
but google can be your friend for sure. Good luck.
 

gadfly56

Senior Member
Location
New Jersey
Occupation
Professional Engineer, Fire & Life Safety
This is a continuing process. I've never found a site that would even sell you standard notes, let alone give them away. I've been the fire alarm engineer at my company for several years. When I started, our notes were pretty thin. As I went along from project to project, the notes would get longer and longer as we got more detailed about wire sizes, device locations, etc. A good place to start is to grab the general notes pages from every job your company has bid and copy what you like. I have a lot of my standard notes basically cribbing bits and pieces from what others have done.

One of the things you have to be very warry of is mindlessly using any boiler plate you generate. I can tell you I have very little regard for an MEP firm that talks about end-of-line resistors in their notes for use on addressable fire alarm circuits! Makes me wonder how else does their design suck.

You should also give some consideration to the general arrangement of your drawings. Depending on the size of the project, notes go on the first sheet, the riser goes on the second, next is the operations matrix, floor plans follow, and section, elevation, and device details bring up the rear. This way you can get a template going so you're quicker out of the gate on drawing packages.
 

tmccabe84

Member
Location
Denver, CO
Thank you for the replies! I have a pretty solid background in creating construction documents, just thought there might be a resource to start from. I have started a note list using the method suggested and grabbing parts of other projects I like. Thank you for the advice about not blindly incorporating notes, gadfly56. I will definitely not be describing any systems I don't fully understand. I lean towards a CYA note to provide a fully functional system rather than trying to describe something I know nothing about. Then I will get more detailed as I learn more about the system and critical design parameters. Also, thank you for the link to the Veterans Affairs site, Knightryder12! Our mechanical guy mentioned this page, but wasn't sure where to find it. Now I'll be able to tell him!

I appreciate the welcome to the forum, look forward to sharing ideas with everyone!
 

cadpoint

Senior Member
Location
Durham, NC
While not opening available as a "downloadable" you might check out your district, US Army Corp of Engineering.

The bulk not all of their work is completed in Microstation,(per my district anyways...)

One will find a complete application for oh just about everything. Maybe even close to over kill. :D

Because your an engineer, I don't see how they could deny you, besides talking to the CAD Dept you might ask to get on the RFB list.
 

tmccabe84

Member
Location
Denver, CO
Thanks cadpoint. I knew the Army Corp had boiler plate layouts for typical rooms in their facilities, but didn't realize they had details as well. I will certainly check that out. What does RFB stand for?
 
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