Prepare simple building sketches and drawings

For drawings used in the building industry there is a convention regarding the use of lines. Some line types are used only in specialist plans such as electrical and hydraulics, but there are a few that you will be using in your drawings.

Types of lines and their use

When selecting the scale that you're going to use for a drawing you should consider the following.

1. The type of information you need to communicate.
2. How best to communicate the information on the drawing for the particular work to be carried out.
3. The time and effort required to produce the drawing.

Australian Standard 1100.301 (Table 2.6) provides guidance on recommended scales. You should also always check with local authorities, as councils and others may have specific requirements regarding scales to be used for given items.

Recommended scales

In the building industry general abbreviations are used for words or word combinations which are in common use in drawings. As per Australian Standard AS1100.101, you should always use upper-case letters. You should only use abbreviations if they are going to be easily recognised by others involved in your project, including engineers, architects and surveyors. As a general rule, if you're not sure then you should spell it out in full rather than use an abbreviation.

Some examples are provided here, but you can look at AS1100.101–1992 (Table 1.1) for a comprehensive list of abbreviations.

General abbreviations

Levels record the distance above or below a defined datum, either Standard Datum (mean sea level) or a selected datum for the particular project. Levels related to any datum other than Standard Datum (SD) are referred to as Reduced Levels (RL).

You should establish a reference datum for each project in order to define the reduced levels of the building works. This job (or project) datum must be located on site and easily visible and it must not be moved through the course of a job. It must also be clearly indicated on all drawings. The datum adopted for a project should ensure that all reduced levels are positive numbers.

Levels and contours

As with many things related to building design, there are conventions in place for the characters that you use in your drawings. Characters should obviously be clear and easy to read, however particular standards apply to the character heights that you should use according to the sheet size of your plan. These conventions are detailed in Australian Standard 1100.101.

Character heights

Cross-referencing to other drawings may be required on some projects. The method employed is the use of a circle symbol – the upper segment of the circle contains the specific item classification code and the lower segment holds the drawing number (or sheet) reference.

Cross-referencing to other drawings

In your drawings and plans, you'll need to cross-reference certain items, such as components and assemblies, to schedules. This should be indicated on drawings by the use of the schedule symbol, which must be produced as per Australian Standard 1100.301.

Cross-referencing to schedules