Read a floor plan
One complete plan, five questions about it. Some answers are on the plan, some you have to work out. Get 10 right to finish.
Same drawing, question 1 of 5
How many doors does this plan show?
What to look for
- Dimension strings along the bottom and the right side: room sizes on the inside string, the overall on the outside one.
- Doors are a gap in the wall with an arc for the swing. Windows are thin parallel lines across the wall.
- The north arrow tells you which way each wall faces.
- The section bubble shows the section number on top and the sheet it is drawn on below.
- The scale in the corner lets you go from real size to paper size and back.
Questions
- How do I find a room size that is not dimensioned?
- Use the dimension strings. The parts of a string add up to the overall, so the missing part is the overall minus the parts you know.
- How do I work out floor area from a plan?
- Multiply the width by the depth. In feet and inches, turn both into decimal feet first: 16'-6" is 16.5 ft.
Explained in our own words and checked against several textbooks and trade school resources. Office standards vary, so always check the legend on your drawing set.