That moment my blueprint scale was off by a quarter inch on a commercial job

Last Tuesday I was working on a multi-family build out in a strip mall over near Oak Street. Took me about 3 hours to lay out the electrical runs on paper, felt real confident about it. Get to the site and start marking my conduit paths on the actual ceiling grid and nothing lines up right. I mean I'm off by almost a foot on one section. Turns out I had my scale set to 1/8 inch instead of 1/4 inch for the whole first page. Had to redo the entire layout while the GC was texting me asking when I could start pulling wire. What I learned is now I triple check my scale before committing to any marks on the print. Anyone else had a brain fart like this where you mixed up your scaling?

2 comments

2 Comments

abbyr9614d ago

I had a buddy who did almost the exact same thing on a restaurant build out. He spent a whole weekend laying out his ductwork on paper, showed up Monday morning and everything was like a foot and a half off from where it needed to be. His foreman was not happy about it at all, made him redo the whole thing while the drywall crew was already waiting on him. He told me he still checks his scale like three times now before he even starts drawing anything. That scale mistake is just one of those things that'll get you once and you never forget it.

the_richard14d ago

You ever have one of those screwups that just sticks with you forever? I learned the hard way too, but what worked for me was getting one of those cheap little scale ruler apps on my phone. I also started snapping a photo of the blueprint with my phone before I even leave the shop, so I can zoom in and double check any measurements on site without having to walk back to the truck. Another thing that saved my butt a few times is using a different color pen for each layer of ductwork on the same drawing, helps me keep track of what goes where without crossing lines in my head. The biggest game changer though was just asking the GC to verify one key dimension with me before I start cutting anything, makes them feel included and catches any hidden issues right away.