A set of building plans is the complete documented description of what will be built: site plan, floor plans, elevations, sections and the details that go with them. It has to satisfy two separate bodies of rules, SANS 10400, which governs how a building is constructed, and the land use scheme, which governs what may be built on that erf and where on it. An architect controls the first comfortably. The second is a planning question; coverage, height, floor area, building lines and parking, and it is where most drawing sets are returned.
More often than most owners expect. Approved plans are required for building work, and for some things that are not building work at all.
Before anything is drawn, establish what the municipality already holds for the property. Where approved plans exist, the new set builds on them. Where nothing is on record, everything standing has to be measured first — which changes the scope of the work considerably.
What a set contains differs with what is being built and with what the municipality already holds on record. These five account for most of the drawings we prepare.
The full set, from site plan to construction details. Coverage, height and building lines set the envelope before the design begins.
Drawn so building control can see exactly what changes. The existing has to be accurate, which usually means measuring it rather than trusting old plans.
Among the most common sets we draw. Whether the scheme allows a second dwelling as of right, by consent, or not at all is established first.
Drawn from what stands, for approval after the fact. What is drawn has to match the building, including anything that drifted from an earlier approval.
Heavier requirements for fire separation, ablutions, access and parking than a dwelling carries. The zoning usually drives the parking count.
A set is not a drawing. It is a document, and each sheet answers a different question — some to SANS 10400, some to the land use scheme.
The erf, its boundaries and building lines, the building’s position on it, parking, access and any servitudes. This is the sheet the zoning check reads.
Every level, dimensioned, with room designations and the areas that feed the coverage and floor area calculations.
All faces of the building and cuts through it, with heights measured from natural ground level rather than from the finished floor.
Sewer connection, gullies, inspection eyes and falls, prepared to the drainage requirements of SANS 10400.
The information SANS 10400-XA requires on the drawings — insulation, glazing and hot water provision. Frequently the item a set is returned for.
Window and door schedules, foundations, roof construction and the details each element requires to be built as drawn.
Coverage is not asserted on a site plan, it is calculated and shown — footprint against erf extent, with the permitted figure alongside it. Where those numbers do not reconcile, the set is returned before anyone opens the floor plans.
Five phases, and the first is not drawing. What the erf permits is established before the design begins, because the envelope is what the design has to live inside.
What the scheme permits on this erf — coverage, height, floor area, building lines and parking — and what the title deed adds to it.
Site levels, boundary positions, and where a building already stands, the building itself. Natural ground level is established here.
The scheme developed inside the envelope and resolved against how the building will actually be used.
The full set drawn: floor plans, elevations, sections, drainage, energy compliance, schedules and details.
The set checked against the scheme and against SANS 10400, then signed by the professional entitled to sign it.
We give you a programme at the outset. In our experience the variable is almost never the drawing time — it is how much has to be measured, and how many times the design changes. From here the set goes to building control, which is a separate exercise.
Usually quoted on floor area, though the area is only part of it. Structural design, where the building requires it, is a separate appointment. Four things move the figure.
A single-storey addition on a flat erf and a double-storey on a slope are not the same drawing, whatever the square metres say.
Nothing on a vacant erf beyond levels and boundaries. Everything standing, on an as-built set. That is survey work before it is drawing work.
A design change does not touch one sheet. Move a wall and the plan, the elevations, the sections and the area calculations all move with it.
Where the design needs a relaxation, a departure or a consent use, that is a planning application running before or alongside the drawings.
Set it against the cost of a set that comes back. Plans returned at the zoning check have to be redrawn, resubmitted and requeued, and the delay usually costs more than the drawings did. The most expensive set is the cheap one that fails.
A drawing set sits in the middle of a sequence. These four are what usually runs before it, after it, or alongside.
What owners, builders and architects ask us before commissioning a set.
Send us the erf number and what you want to build.
Send us the erf number and what you want to build. We will tell you what the property permits, what has to be measured, and what a complete set for your project involves. Initial consultations carry no obligation.
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