My old boss had a rule about never trusting a drawing that was 'almost to scale' and I just found out why on a $600 job in Denver last month

A contractor bid based on my rough prelim and when the actual measurements came in half an inch off on a steel beam, he tried to blame me even though I told him three times it wasn't final, has anyone else had a client run with a draft before it was stamped?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_laura1mo ago

Oh man, I had something almost identical happen with a residential deck project. I did a quick hand sketch for a client just to give them a rough idea of the layout, not even close to final dimensions. Next thing I know, they hand that sketch to a lumber yard and order all the materials based on it. The actual measurements were off by like three quarters of an inch on the ledger board placement because I hadn't factored in the siding thickness yet. The contractor showed up and everything was cut wrong, and the client tried to pin it on me. What finally worked was I started writing "PRELIMINARY DRAFT NOT FOR CONSTRUCTION" in big red letters across every single rough drawing, and I make them sign a little waiver before I even hand over the napkin sketch. I also started charging a small fee for any preliminary drawings, just $50, to make sure they actually value it and don't just run with it.

taylor.amy1mo ago

Maybe I'm wrong but isn't half an inch on a steel beam kind of a normal thing that gets filed on site? Feels like the contractor should know how to adjust for that.

kaiharris1mo ago

I had a client do this to me on a $1200 drafting job in Austin a few years back... handed my chicken scratch to a steel fabricator before I even had the survey done. What finally put a stop to it was exactly what @the_laura said - I started watermarking every single draft with "PRELIMINARY - DO NOT USE FOR CONSTRUCTION" in red across the whole page, plus I made them initial and date a little disclaimer at the bottom before I'd even email a PDF. Also started charging a $75 consultation fee for the initial sketches, and oddly enough that made people take them a lot more seriously.