Metric Noob: What are the Common scales and dimension units?

[Chazz]

Maybe some of you less insular practitioners could illuminate this US bumpkin on life beyond feet and inches:

What are the common scales for the following views:

• - Site plan
  - Floor plans
  - Interior elevations
  - exterior elevations

And what are the units used to dimension those views?

I know there is variation depending on project size, local convention and probably personal preference --just as there is here in BushWorld-- but I'm just looking for guidelines. Most of my work is sub 500 Sq. Meter retail. Any information greatly appreciated.

[Anonymous]

I've never been a big fan of 1:25 scale, but have been persuaded to use it lately as so many of our drawings are reduced from A1 to A3, hence 1:25 becomes 1:50 (not many people have a 1:40 scale rule).

And centimeters just confuse me.

[__archiben]

s2art wrote:
... as so many of our drawings are reduced from A1 to A3, hence 1:25 becomes 1:50 (not many people have a 1:40 scale rule).

absolutely - i've been doing all enlarged room plans and cabinetry at this scale now for the same reason. the trouble is, try and find a new scale rule with 1:25 on it!

also, you can always fit slightly more on a page at 1:25 than you can at 1:20 without any loss of clarity (it's negligible).

i was always a fan of 1:20, but those two reasons are swaying me now . . .

~/archiben

[gpowless]

It really is a sad attestation to the poor implementation of advanced technology to be discussing this. We can model entire buildings inside our computers, devise new and interesting ways to make buildings complete with documentation on virtually every component, and yet we need to consider that the project manager can't read the paper version of our drawings unless it fits the physical scale he has in his briefcase. Never mind that fact that most of make sure we have the disclaimer on our drawings :DO NOT SCALE DRAWINGS!.....

This is clearly the fact of the tail trying to wag the dog.......

[vistasp]

Dwight wrote:
Canada has this schizophrenetic approach to metric.... our plywood is 1219x2438...

Djordje wrote:
Imperial is alive and kicking in the ex Raj ... especially for the areas, sqft rules, although millimeters are the plan unit of choice, especially for the site plans!!!

It's worse than simply schizophrenic here; similar to what Dwight said about Canada, our plywoods are 1220x2440 - a token "rounding off" of the metric dimensions to comply with the law which mandates that manufactured materials must follow the metric system.

Wall and floor tiles start off as multiples of 150mm but, as you go towards the larger sizes and the discrepancy increases, they often try and match the imperial dimensions - so you might have flooring of 610x610mm. Adding to the confusion, a lot of stuff is coming from S.E. Asia or Southern Europe these days, so we're seeing unfamiliar sizes by the boatload!

Lumber is a relatively unregulated business and is still blatantly priced in cubic feet. As Djorje said, areas - especially for property - are imperial. Land is measured in a variety of units - depending on which part of the country you're in. Acres, "Metric" Acres (rounded off to 40,000sft and more commonly used), Sq. Yards, Ares, Hectares, Roods, Gunthas... Oh, and while official documentation uses the metric system, the local preference is always written in brackets. I guess in a country with more than a hundred languages, a half-dozen systems of measurement are par for the course.

And finally, after spending all my student life working in metric, I still prefer to visualise in feet!

[Anonymous]

I have been using the metric system all of my life but I am still 5'7"

[__archiben]

gpowless wrote:
Never mind that fact that most of make sure we have the disclaimer on our drawings :DO NOT SCALE DRAWINGS!.....

absolutely - but to be able to print out on conveniently sized paper and sketch options over the top are what make it worth the effort . . .

(not to mention it feels like a part of something bigger rather than floundering around on it's own i'm all for things tying nicely in with each other . . .)

[Ignacio Azpiazu]

One other thing which I think is about as important as metric/imperial, which go together with it if you are thinking of Germany/US but I am pretty sure there must be some hybrids in between, are sheet sizes and rolled-vs-folded. My current understanding of the thing is:

If you roll and eventually bind your drawings,
- your US-style titleblock will take a full-height strip of your drawing to the right,
- your whole package is laid out for a single sheet size,
- because of that you will have sheets with more than one drawing and you need to show the scale in the drawing title and not the titleblock, and
- you need a full-size cover sheet for the drawing list and project information where you can also throw in the location map, perhaps code info, whatever.

On the other hand if you fold your DIN/ISO sized sheets down to A4,
- you want your DIN/ISO titleblock on your lower right corner,
- you don't care about individual sheet size as long as it is folded down to A4,
- you prefer avoiding coordination trouble by putting one drawing only in each sheet, your scale then shows in the sheet titleblock which also contains the Archicad drawing title information (the Archicad drawing title is not needed for 1 drawing per sheet) (even details and door elevations etc. are easier to coordinate at one A4 or A3 sheet per drawing, although I've seen people using large sheets with many details in the metric world too),
- and your front page and drawing lists can be A4s so you don't need a huge fancy cover sheet.

There are standards for all of the titleblocks and stuff, but I never understood the US titleblock and cover sheet until I understood that they roll everything.

[Anonymous]

That's a really interesting little factette Ignacio. I didn't realise there was that much difference between folded and rolled drawings. Thanks for the info!