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Al Whitley/2 min read

Understanding Floor Plans, Elevations, Sections, Wall Sections, and Details in Construction Drawings

Construction Estimating Workflow

1

Quantity Takeoff

Count or measure every item — doors, walls, finishes.

2

Apply Unit Costs

Material + labor per unit from a cost database.

3

Add Overhead & Profit

Standard markups for project conditions.

4

Document Assumptions

Bid clarifications protect against scope disputes later.

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This tutorial walks through understanding floor plans, elevations, sections, wall sections, and details in construction drawings, covering essential tools and techniques for your projects.

I would like to spend a few minutes explaining the difference between a floor plan, a building elevation, a building section, wall sections, and details. Typically, a floor plan is a slice that's happening through a building, and the slice is normally measured about 4 feet 6 inches above the finished floor or the ground plane of a building. So a floor plan is a horizontal slice through a building.

An elevation is a slice that is outside of the building that looks straight on at the different sides of a building. We have floor plans that are horizontal slices through the building, elevations that are vertical slices at the outside of the building. A building section is a vertical slice that happens through a building.

The floor plan, the building elevations, and the building sections are normally shown at the same scale throughout a set of drawings where the floor plans, the elevations, and the building sections are relaying information at the same level of detail. We also have something that is called a wall section. In a wall section, we are zooming in on specific information so that we can show even more detail.

Last but not least, we have a detail itself. With a detail, we are really zooming in on information provided within a set of construction documents. We have a floor plan, which is a horizontal slice through the building.

We have elevations, which are slices outside of the building looking at the building. We have building sections, which are slices through the building. We have wall sections, which are enlarged areas within the drawing.

And we have details, which are providing yet more information on the drawing. These are the typical kinds of information that we show throughout a set of construction documents. It is important to remember that these views are representations of our building geometry as 2D drawings.

These drawings may be referred to as views, drawings, plans, details, or even images. These words are interchangeable in most situations, but "drawings" will usually be the best term for describing these views.