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Drawing Layouts On Floor - NEW CONSTRUCTION

8/12/15       
Jordan Hoffsmith  Member

I just wanted to gauge the amount of others in the business that take their cabinetry floorplans and draw them on the floor on new construction projects. For the past 30 years, we've done this, at no cost to the builder / homeowner. All we need to do the project accurately are site measurements - drawing the project on the floor is a benefit to the builder. Since some larger jobs can take up the whole day of someone's time to draw the layouts, we are thinking about charging to do the layouts. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

8/12/15       #2: Drawing Layouts On Floor - NEW CONS ...
Jim Member

Are you taking the field measurements then doing the layouts on a computer? AutoCad maybe?
Why not just print off a copy of the layout and tack it on the wall?

8/12/15       #3: Drawing Layouts On Floor - NEW CONS ...
Jordan Hoffsmith  Member

The field measurements are taken at a previous date, the floorplans are updated in AutoCAD and we make another trip out to the job to do the floor layout. We give the builder a copy of all the updated drawings as well.

8/12/15       #4: Drawing Layouts On Floor - NEW CONS ...
Jim Member

Sounds like if you've been doing it for 30 years free your kind of locked in.
What purpose does the layout of the cabinets on the floor serve? Never heard of it before and I've been in this residential cabinet business 40+ years. Granted its been with the same few architects and the GC's they use. I'm guessing the other trades don't need the service as much as you think. Almost everybody can read a set of plans............hopefully.

8/12/15       #5: Drawing Layouts On Floor - NEW CONS ...
JM

We give the builder a set of plans with dimensions that are pertinent to the other trades such as sink locations. It seems to work well for us and is just a couple extra clicks of the mouse to add these to the drawings.

8/13/15       #6: Drawing Layouts On Floor - NEW CONS ...
james mcgrew Member

A) I pray I never do residential work again... Having said that We would sometimes (for the mathematically challenged Builders "Draw out the elevation and floor plan so the tile guy could save a few bucks, Make sure the DW was in the right place and electricians and plumbers would not get placements wrong..

B) I pray I never have to do resiicential again !!

8/17/15       #7: Drawing Layouts On Floor - NEW CONS ...
Cabmaker

Here's a question to ask yourself? How many times have you discovered a mistake or a problem as a result of that second site visit? Just being able to nip those problems in the bud can make you money.

The problem with problems that get discovered on the jobsite is that they need to be fixed on somebody else's schedule ten miles from your shop. You may be able to charge for some of these fixes but not for the amount it costs you globally.

A secondary benefit for this trip is that it builds confidence. You're more confident in the dimensions and your customer is more confident in you. Many of your next jobs are dependent on the relationships you build on the first one. This second trip gives you an opportunity to build build better relationships with your customer.

This might not be seem economic now while the economy is booming but in the next downturn you are going to be so grateful to have a job you'll also be washing their car on this trip.

8/24/15       #8: Drawing Layouts On Floor - NEW CONS ...
some dude

there are in-between steps you can take.

a place I used to be did the layout in cad, but always set the cabinets up...tight side-by-side...and checked the overall dims (and dims to pipes etc).

we got the benefit of a quick cad layout, and the safety check of comparing the finished cabinets to that layout...

you should do what works for you. A bad cad operator will screw up what I am suggesting, but at least it will get caught before leaving the factory.

1/29/19       #9: Drawing Layouts On Floor - NEW CONS ...
Donald Caron

It's difficult to enforce 'hold to' dimensions in residential work, so I do what ever I can to take instruction from the GC and adjust the discrepancies later-yes, in another trip w/o charging them for it. Experience usually gives you some hint of what to expect in such situations. Its all part of the CODB.


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