Discover the intricacies of interpreting floor plans, including the nuances of understanding different types of doors and windows. This article provides an in-depth explanation of floor plan symbols and their meanings, crucial knowledge for architects, builders, and those interested in the construction industry.
Key Insights
- A floor plan is typically drawn as a horizontal slice about four and a half feet above the ground. It includes representations of doors and windows, with specific symbols indicating hinge points, door swings, and the type of door (hinged, double, bifold, or pocket).
- Apart from doors, floor plans also depict different types of windows, from casement to double hung. These symbols represent various elements such as the glass, window frame, and the inside and outside of the window.
- In a detailed representation, floor plans may feature more specific elements such as the width of the door or the mullion in a window. However, more commonly, a simplified representation is used with symbols referencing a schedule that details the manufacturer and specifics of the window or door.
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When you are looking at a floor plan, a floor plan is usually drawn as a horizontal slice about four and a half feet looking down towards the floor. So right over here is a drawing for a standard hinged door. And so you can see the gray in this area and that area.
That's the wall. This rectangle right here is the door. This area right here is the hinge point.
This is where the door touches the wall. And this is the swing over here of the door as it closes. This is representative.
We're typically using a standard width of one and a half or one and three quarters of an inch for the width of the door. But we always show the hinge point and where the door closes. Then we have a double door.
With a double door, one is typically fixed or usually closed. The other is the dominant door. Just like with the single door, we have our hinge points.
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And what you might see in some drawings is they might have one door dashed in this area, which would mean that this is the door that's typically closed. Right here we have bifold or closet doors. Again, you can see the door is hinged here and it's hinged on the bottom side here.
When they buckle down, this area here slides down and will align with the lower part of the door right there. Here we have a pocket door. You can see that typically what's happening as we're showing the door, pocket doors these days are usually purchased as an assembly, which has a frame that stretches from over here back to here.
It has the thinner walls assembled there and it has the track that goes above the door. But again, so here's a pocket door. It's an assembly.
You can see that it slides to the left and the right. Here is what they call a bypass sliding door. We can see the door here.
We see the direction. What you'll see in some instances is an archway. So you can see the wall here, the wall here, and then this is a dashed or hidden line that shows the line of the archway or the opening above.
On this last row are different levels of details and ways of representing a window. So pretend that you're in a room and you're standing right here. Okay, this is the bottom edge of the wood that's at the bottom of the window.
Right here in the middle is the glass and out here is the edge of the window on the outside of the building. If you have brick, sometimes people will show the brick that's outside right here. So again, what's happening is you're standing here.
Right in through here is the glass. Here's the bottom of the window below on the inside, the bottom of the window on the outside. This is a casement window.
And in this example, to my mind, this is a casement window that swings inward. You can see that it's showing more detail. It's showing the jam on this side and the jam, J-A-M-B, on the left and the right side.
So that's the wood detail. And then you can see here that they're showing a mullion, which is a window between the two. And then they're also showing here the inside of the window frame, outside of the window frame, and then the glazing at the window when it's closed.
And then over here, a double hung window where again we're showing the entire assembly. You less frequently see a window displayed this way than this way. The reason is the more detail you show in something like a window frame or a window jam, the more the expectations rise that you've done the research.
And these aren't just lines, but rather they mean something in particular. And so people are more commonly using this kind of a representation. They will then have, for example, a window symbol.
The window symbol, you know, the hexagon with the number or letter, then goes to the schedule that calls out the manufacturer and the specific window so that you don't need to show this level of detail.