INFORMATION SHEET No. 1.

3-1
Blueprint Reading
Building plans and specification form part of the working drawings needed
in any construction project.
A working drawing should include the following:
1. Site Plan essentially shows the location of a building or house site. It
includes the following:
• lot number
• distance of the house from the site boundaries
• name of the road on which the site is located
• actual size of the site
• compass direction
• position and size of the casement
• scale of the drawing
2. Floor Plan is a drawing showing the layout of a building taken at a level
plan through windows and doors approximately one meter up from the floor.
It shows the following:
• arrangement and names of the rooms
• location of all external and internal walls
• room sizes
• length and width dimensions
• position of doors and windows
• built-in furniture
• sectioning lines and labels in alphabetical order
• eaves lines
• roof structure as shown by broken diagonal lines to represent hips and
valleys.
3. Elevation is a scaled drawing of the front, rear or side of a building. It
includes dimensions that cannot be shown on a floor plan such as the height
dimension.
1. Details. Most working drawings are drawn to the scale of 1:100, which is
rather small. It is not always possible to show important shapes,
positions for assembly, and dimensions of specific parts of a building. A
separate drawing is made using the larger scales of 1:5 or 1:10.

5. Specification is a written document prepared by an architect which

serves as a set of instruction or guidelines that accompanies a working
drawing. It describes how certain aspects of building construction are to
be done and which materials are to be used. It also describes their
desired quality and the expected standard of work.

Knowing how to read and interpret a working drawing saves time, money
and effort in the construction of the building.