When you start talking about the layout of the building, you are basically starting the process of using all the architectural proposals and drawings and transferring them to the land where the construction will take place. This ensures that you can mark where specific location points will be for thresholds, foundations, walls, columns, and any other structural part of the building.
As you can see, the entire structure is included in the building layout, so it must be completed after the completion of the conditional survey and documentary study. The entire area must be free of debris, obstructions, and even growing vegetation. Everything needed to create the different levels of the building layout must also be finalized and ready for use before the building layout process begins.
When laying out a building, you must follow the drawings of the architect or sometimes the engineer. These drawings will tell you how everything should be organized and is the only way to ensure that no mistakes are made. If a mistake is made and not discovered before the rest of the work begins, then it can be a costly mistake that could cost thousands of dollars.
The first step in laying out your building should be finding the baseline, which will be the point on which everything else will be based. Each baseline is a reference line, which often meets the construction line. The construction line is the project boundary, which is usually determined by a road or local authorities.
Once you have your baseline and construction line, you can easily find the corners of your construction. Once determined, you must use the horizontal controls, which are coordinates that allow you to find all other specific points. You need to have multiple control points, so that if one of them is a little off, the entire building layout doesn't have to be dismantled and restarted.
Vertical controls are usually points that are on a nearby road or other nearby feature, but they can also be something as simple as a post set in concrete.
Once you determine these points, you are ready to complete the building layout. Easy rectangular buildings are usually marked by lines tied to corner posts. When tying these lines to the top of the corner posts, you should use a construction square, or construction square, to ensure you get the proper ninety-degree angle. You may also need to use a stick to create a straight line between certain corner posts.
Although most people use string to outline the building, you can also mark the outline on the ground. You would do this using dry lime or a similar powder. These materials will be washed away by rain, so it is important that there is no rain forecast in the days following the appointment and beginning of the construction process.
Many buildings are basic rectangles, but for those that are not, the building layout is created in basically the same way. You still need to find specific points, but you must be careful when using them, as the slightest mistake in any of them can cause a headache later.
We recommend creating a huge rectangle that will hold the entire irregularly shaped building and then creating the exact layout later. This ensures that the layout of your building is as accurate as possible.
Framed buildings are sometimes the easiest because they use a grid to build layouts. The grid is created using a theodolite and pins mark the grid intersections. Once the grid is created, you will use the intersecting grid lines for any center point of the foundation.
The best part of using these harrows is that you can easily use offset pins outside the digging work area without any problems later.
There will be times when you must extend some of the lines you have. This is often common with corner points, as some digging is required for the construction process. If this is the case, you can transfer these corner points to the other side of the excavation area and simply drive stakes into the ground.
It will be important to note these changes in the drawings, so that anyone observing them and the current layout of the building does not use the wrong point during the construction phase.
Everyone in the construction industry knows how important it is to complete the building layout properly. However, for those not in the industry or those new to the area, here are some things that can go wrong when you don't tag the building correctly:
- Inadequate space around certain parts of the building – This can create fewer parking spaces or make the space around the building too small for cars that need or want to drive.
- Damaged materials – Materials can be damaged because they are not installed correctly, because the space is too large or too small
- Insufficient materials – If the building layout ends up being larger than it should be, more materials will be needed than initially thought.
- Construction Delay – Many times, a construction layout that is not done correctly will be discovered shortly before the construction process begins. This almost always means that the building layout needs to be torn down and started from scratch, which will delay the start of the project.
- Lost profits – If a project does not start on time or uses more materials than planned, the company will lose the profits it planned to receive when the project was completed.
As you can see, building layouts are very important in the construction industry. A solid building layout can ensure a successful project from start to finish, while a hastily put together layout can end up being a warped building when construction is complete.
The next time you need to construct a building from start to finish, be sure to follow the guidelines for building layout. You'll be surprised at how much easier the rest of the project is and how smooth many other parts of the job will go since everything happens exactly where it's listed on the original drawings.
