411 Chapter 13 Design Documentation: Drawings and Specifications 13.1 Introduction Design documents evolve from and include the designer’s calculations, equipment selections, and sketches and are usually presented through formal drawings and specifications. These construction documents are the legal means by which the designer conveys the owner’s expecta- tions to the contractor. The importance of good documentation cannot be overemphasized. An old adage says, ‘‘A picture is worth a thousand words.’’ In con- struction, drawings are the picture, and specifications are the thou- sand words. But for projects of importance or great value where the work is accomplished by contract between owner and builder, it is important that there be good specifications in addition to the drawings to define the relationships between the parties. The purpose of this chapter is to review the nature of contracts and then to define drawing preparation and specification organization and writing well enough that the reader will have an understanding of and be prepared to practice the basic techniques of document preparation. Since drawings and specifications become a part of a construction contract, they become legal documents. As such, they must define the work to be done clearly, completely, and unambiguously. Although this ideal is seldom achieved, designers must do their best to meet these criteria. Lawsuits involving millions of dollars have been filed based on the interpretation of a few sentences in the specifications or a lack of clear detail on the drawings. At the same time as contract documents are identified as being of paramount importance to the relationship between owner and con- Source: HVAC Systems Design Handbook Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website. 412 Chapter Thirteen tractor, remember that document preparation has a cost which must be reasonable and a schedule which must be met. No project has an infinite amount of time or resources which can be allocated to the design effort. The result is that documents should be adequate, but not overdone, should be prepared deftly and in an organized fashion, all arranged to fully reflect the owner’s hopes and the designer’s in- tent. 13.2 The Nature of Contracts In the United States, the law allows two or more individuals or com- panies or institutions to contract with each other for an exchange of goods or services. In HVAC work, a building owner, called the owner, will typically arrange with a vendor or installer, called the contractor, to furnish and install equipment and related material in a system. Often the HVAC work is performed in conjunction with the full com- plement of building construction. The agreement between the owner and the contractor contains the basic elements of any legal contract; i.e., there is a work or service of value committed to deliver, there is compensation for the work performed, and there is a time period of performance. All three components are required to establish a valid contract. Most construction is undertaken by contract, where the specifica- tions and drawings define the work to be done and the contract in- cludes a description of compensations and a date of completion. There are often penalties for failure to perform in a timely manner and some- times bonuses for early completion. Persons signing the contract must be authorized to do so. This is self-evident in the case of a private individual, a proprietorship, or a partnership. In the case of a corporation, the board of directors must have given authority to the signator for his or her signature to be valid and binding on the company. Signatures are often witnessed or nota- rized. 13.3 Drawings As already noted, contract drawings are legal documents and thus should avoid ambiguity. This consideration leads to several criteria which are typical of good drawings. The efforts take design time. The alternative—providing inadequate information, neglecting details, and careless checking—can take a great deal more time later on, can cost money for extras, and even can lose the confidence of the client in the designer’s competence. Design Documentation: Drawings and Specifications Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website. Design Documentation: Drawings and Specifications 413 13.3.1 Drawing size and scale Drawing size and scale should be appropriate for the work being de- scribed. Typical drawing sheet sizes are described both by letter and by sheet dimension. Size Dimension A8 1 ⁄ 2 ϫ 11 B11ϫ 17 C18ϫ 24 D24ϫ 36 (22 ϫ 34) E30ϫ 42 F36ϫ 48 Special sizes may be custom-ordered. Smaller sheets can be included in a book of specifications. Larger sheets are almost always presented as a set, except in the case of only one or two sheets, where they may be neatly folded and placed in pockets in the specification book. The drawing scale is determined by the amount of detail to be pre- sented for the dominant aspects of the work. For building construction, 1 ⁄ 8 in ϭ 1 ft is a common scale. A very large building may have a plan view at 1 ⁄ 16 in ϭ 1 ft for an overview and routing of major systems, with sectionalized drawings at larger scale. Note that doubling a scale uses 4 times the drawing area to make the presentation. A common plan dimension for commercial and institutional con- struction is 1 ⁄ 8 in ϭ 1 ft. For residential floor plans and for layouts needing more detail and near-dimensional accuracy than can be ex- pected of 1 ⁄ 8 - and 1 ⁄ 16 -in scales, 1 ⁄ 4 in ϭ 1 ft is used. Many mechanical room layouts are presented at 1 ⁄ 4 -in scale. When much detailed pre- sentation is needed, larger scales such as 1 ⁄ 2 in ϭ 1 ft, 3 ⁄ 4 in ϭ 1 ft, 1inϭ 1 ft, 1 1 ⁄ 2 in ϭ 1 ft, and 3 in ϭ 1 ft are employed. For no apparent reason, many civil engineers involved in construction use 3 ⁄ 32 -, 3 ⁄ 16 -, and 3 ⁄ 8 -in scales. No matter which scale is chosen, it is helpful and important for all members of the design team to use common scale(s). This helps to avoid errors and makes the overall drawing set easier to read and interpret. 13.3.2 Drawing character Line work, whether hand-drawn or computer- or plotter-generated, should be clear, sharp, and accurate. Lettering should be neat, uni- form, and legible. The appearance of the drawings can go far to es- tablish the credibility—the acceptance or the lack of acceptance—of the product, which is the design. Early in the development of computer-aided design (CAD) techniques, it was felt that computer- Design Documentation: Drawings and Specifications Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website. 414 Chapter Thirteen generated drawings lacked the ‘‘character’’ of well-presented hand- drawn work. But over time, with improved software and increased CAD drafter skills, computer-generated drawings can have all the character of hand-drawn work plus a greater degree of consistency and accuracy. 13.3.3 Adequate information Enough views, both plan and section, should be drawn to fully present the work. Details should be numerous and explicit. Standard details are often useful and save time, as long as the application is really standard. Failure to tailor standards to actual conditions can be an embarrassing, even costly experience. 13.3.4 Drawing legends Symbols and abbreviations should be defined in a legend. There are many regional or office-specific legends, but no universally accepted industry standards, although ASHRAE, among others, has suggested a set of symbols in the ASHRAE Handbook Fundamentals. 1 Several government agencies have standards of their own which they require to be used on their projects. 13.3.5 Diagrammatic drawings Schematic diagrams for system flow and control are very helpful to both the installer and the user. A complete and detailed schematic will answer most questions about concept and performance. Such diagrams are sometimes referred to as flow diagrams, isometrics, or P&I (pro- cess and instrumentation) diagrams. 13.3.6 Schedules Equipment schedules with tabular equipment performance informa- tion should be on the drawings rather than in the specifications. Ex- perience shows that the installer often doesn’t have (or doesn’t refer to) the specifications. After the job is completed, the drawings are al- most always available while specifications have a way of disappearing. Equipment schedules then become a valuable resource for the owner. Some design offices include full equipment specifications on the draw- ings, but this seems to take more document preparation time and may make it more difficult to coordinate drawings and specifications if changes are needed. Design Documentation: Drawings and Specifications Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website. Design Documentation: Drawings and Specifications 415 13.3.7 Minimize sources of information A good rule for presentation of quantitative information is to show it only once on the drawings and not to call out information on the draw- ings that is covered in the specifications, or vice versa. This reduces the potential for error as well as the amount of information which must be updated when changes are made. 13.3.8 Quality control—checking Drawings should be carefully checked for errors and omissions, pref- erably by the system designer. Some offices use an independent checker to take a fresh look at the near-final product. 13.3.9 Use of computers in drafting The use of computers in design, drafting, and specification writing has proliferated in recent years. 2 Computer-aided design and drafting (CADD) systems are available for lease or purchase or on a timeshar- ing basis from computer service companies. As software has become more sophisticated, the systems have become easier to use. However, to use these systems requires a considerable investment in equipment and in training of personnel. A CADD system, properly designed and used, will almost always save time and money eventually, but time and costs may increase initially during the learning period. Many gov- ernment agencies and private institutions are so committed to CADD that such capability is a requirement to obtain work. 13.4 Specifications Most of the construction industry now uses a format developed by the Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) for specifications. 3 This is a standardized outline of contract and construction material with forms for the contract work and with section and subsection numbers for each technical topic. The system includes flexibility for adding in- formation unique to a project. For details, contact the Construction Specifications Institute, 601 Madison St., Alexandria, Virginia 22314. See Fig. 13.1. 13.4.1 Contractual matters, or boilerplate Preceding the technical specifications, which with the drawings define the actual work to be accomplished, there is usually additional docu- mentation which establishes the contractual relationship between the Design Documentation: Drawings and Specifications Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website. 416 Chapter Thirteen Figure 13.1 Masterformat. Design Documentation: Drawings and Specifications Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website. Design Documentation: Drawings and Specifications 417 Figure 13.1 (Continued ) Design Documentation: Drawings and Specifications Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website. 418 Chapter Thirteen contractor and the owner. Such documentation may include the follow- ing: Invitation to bid (instruction to bidders): A section which describes the nature of the project, establishes the time and place for sub- mitting bids, and expresses any other qualification or action re- quired of potential bidders. Bid forms: A formal document for the contractor to fill out to pro- pose a price for completing the work described by the contract doc- uments. The proposal may call for a lump-sum price or may be writ- ten on a unit-price, hourly cost (time and materials), or cost-plus-fee basis. Sometimes there is a base bid with additive or deductive alter- nates. The alternates give the owner a chance to adjust the cost of the project to meet available funding. Bonds: Insurance policies. Since contractors sometimes fail to com- plete the work as contracted, some projects require a payment bond which guarantees to the owner that the contract will be completed, even by a third party if necessary. General conditions: Often a lengthy document spelling out in great detail the behaviors required of the owner and the contractor in the conduct of the work. Standard industry forms of this document are often used [see the American Institute of Architects (AIA) form A- 201 or Engineering Joint Documents Council (EJDC) form 1910-8]. The general conditions may be modified with job specific supple- mental general conditions. In preparing elements of the contractual papers or boilerplate, it is helpful to use standard document forms which have a common origin and have been checked for legal consistency between the different forms. Such are available from the AIA and EJDC. Other entities such as federal and state institutions as well as corporations may have their own forms and formats. In this litigious U.S. society, it is imperative that these documents be clear and consistent. 13.4.2 Technical specifications Following the information which describes the legal characteristics of the contract between the contractor (vendor and installer), the tech- nical specifications describe in more or less detail which materials are to be used and how they are to be installed. The drawings, usually at reduced scale, indicate the form of the installation. Drawings and Design Documentation: Drawings and Specifications Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website. Design Documentation: Drawings and Specifications 419 specifications complement each other. Drawings usually identify quan- tity, specifications cover quality. There is no legally prescribed format for technical specifications. Any presentation of information which gets the contractor to do what the owner wants in a timely and cost effective manner can be consid- ered a good specification. Decades ago, virtually every office had its own arrangement for specifications. Different components of construc- tion could be found in almost any order, and the verbal expression could take almost any format. Roughly since World War II, there has been a gradual but discernible trend toward what is now a highly sophisticated and almost universally accepted arrangement for pre- senting technical specification information. The general format can probably be attributed to the federal government in its several agen- cies which oversee construction of thousands of projects. As background for specification organization, recognize that many different trades may work on a single project, but for clarity and ease of bidding and quality control, it is helpful to group work for a given trade in one area or section of the specification. At the same time, recognize that a single contract between the owner and contractor for many elements of work creates a commitment for the contractor for all work, whether it is well arranged or not; but it may be difficult for the contractor to apportion work between trades, between subcontrac- tors, if the specification is fragmented. The format which has gained general construction industry accep- tance has 16 divisions for major categories of work. These divisions are listed in Fig. 13.2. Each division is broken down into sections with as many sections and as much depth as needed to convey the criteria for the work (see Fig. 13.3). Each section in turn has a format containing three parts, as indi- cated in Fig. 13.4. As stated before, specifications can be written with more or less detail as desired. Specifications for residential housing are often ab- breviated to 3 to 5 letter-size pages for the whole house, relying on the habit of the contractor for most detail. In contrast, specifications for large buildings contracted for through competitive bidding, which requires tight quality control, may be several hundred pages long. Where many small items and work descriptions are involved, they may be lumped together in a single section. A major component which requires much detail to describe, such as a chiller or a boiler, may be given its own section. The organization of specifications as described above leads to a file full of specifications for every imaginable product and construction method. To the extent that the writings are generic, they become mas- ter specifications and can be referenced over and over from one project Design Documentation: Drawings and Specifications Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website. 420 Chapter Thirteen Ⅲ Bidding requirements, contract forms, conditions of the contract Ⅲ Technical specifications 01000 General requirements 02000 Site work 03000 Concrete 04000 Masonry 05000 Metals 06000 Wood and plastics 07000 Thermal and moisture protection 08000 Doors and windows 09000 Finishes 10000 Specialties 11000 Equipment 12000 Furnishings 13000 Special construction 14000 Conveying systems 15000 Mechanical 16000 Electrical Note: Other divisions are sometimes added in specialized construction such as for industrial plants. Not all divisions may be required for every project. Figure 13.2 Technical specification format with 16 divisions. to another in the design office. Such a file saves time and encourages consistency among the design staff. There are pitfalls, however. Specification information becomes out- dated and inaccurate as products and methods change. More chal- lenging are the nuances between one job and the next which require careful editing of previous or master text to avoid major errors and costly mistakes. Keeping a master specification up to date requires a major commitment of time. 13.4.3 Specification language While allowing every specification writer the latitude to be an indi- vidual in the drafting of specifications, there are a few suggestions which can be helpful to all: 1. Use good English, good grammar, and a good vocabulary. Don’t use slang or colloquialisms (jargon). 2. Use as few words as possible without losing the meaning. 3. Use a direct rather than indirect form of expression. Do it! is more effective than The contractor shall do it. Many specifications have been written that use shall as the im- perative. This is now seen as an awkward way of giving direction. 4. As with report writing, keep the sentence structure simple and clear. Avoid overly complex or long sentences and phrases. Design Documentation: Drawings and Specifications Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website. [...]... developing technology 13. 5 Summary Valid contracts require a scope of work, a time of delivery, and a compensation for service The best system designs will be unsatisfactory if they are not communicated properly to the contractor through the design documents, drawings, and specifications Document preparation is both an art and a science, but it can and must be mastered by HVAC system designers The drawings... complement each other, complete the design, and are part of the legally binding commitment of the contractor or vendor to the owner Consistent drawing and specification formats and style help make a clear, concise directive to the contractor for required work References 1 2 3 4 ASHRAE Handbook, 2001 Fundamentals, Chap 36, ‘‘Abbreviations and Symbols.’’ ASHRAE Handbook, 1999 HVAC Applications, Chap 38, ‘‘Computer.. .Design Documentation: Drawings and Specifications Design Documentation: Drawings and Specifications 421 Figure 13. 3 Division 15 specification outline Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies All rights reserved Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website Design Documentation:... 422 Chapter Thirteen Figure 13. 3 (Continued ) Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies All rights reserved Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website Design Documentation: Drawings and Specifications Design Documentation: Drawings and Specifications 423 Figure 13. 3 (Continued ) Downloaded... Construction Specifications Institute, MasterFormat ASHRAE Handbook, 2000 HVAC Systems and Equipment, Chap 48, ‘‘Codes and Standards.’’ Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies All rights reserved Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website Design Documentation: Drawings and Specifications Downloaded... Warranties Field tests prior to order, fabrication, and installation Part II: The Product(s): Equipment and / or Material Description of item(s) Methods of factory fabrication Factory tests Part III: Field Installation Notes to the contractor to indicate the nature of the installation work Field testing after installation Figure 13. 4 Basic format for a specification section 6 Don’t duplicate information... (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies All rights reserved Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website Design Documentation: Drawings and Specifications Design Documentation: Drawings and Specifications 425 Part I: General Considerations Relationship to other sections Scope of work covered by this section Quality assurance—the qualifications and criteria... but must avoid listing proprietary singularities of given vendors to preserve the openness of the bidding In writing generic specifications, the designer must be careful not to be an inventor, to specify something that nobody makes This can happen when the designer lists the favorite aspects of several different sources of a similar product This condition often results in disputations and higher costs... specifications usually need to list three or more vendors of acceptable product The generic description with a listed vendor but wide-open bidding is used by some design offices to establish a known level of quality while leaving room for substitutions 13. 4.5 Automated word processing Modern computer-based word processors with mass storage media and sophisticated software are a specification writer’s dream... McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies All rights reserved Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website Design Documentation: Drawings and Specifications Design Documentation: Drawings and Specifications 427 work can be made immediately, if not sooner, and the updated file can be printed within moments The qualifier in all this is . 411 Chapter 13 Design Documentation: Drawings and Specifications 13. 1 Introduction Design documents evolve from and include the designer’s calculations,. paramount importance to the relationship between owner and con- Source: HVAC Systems Design Handbook Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill