How I’d pick your 25 sheets

Hey bud. Name’s Punch. Yes, like the list. No, I didn’t pick it, and yes, I’ve heard the joke you were about to make.

Let’s talk about the 25-sheet limit, because it’s the question I get most and the answer is more useful than you’d think.

First, what I actually am. You hand me construction drawings. Twenty-five sheets, that’s the ceiling. You ask questions in plain English and I answer off those sheets, usually before you’ve finished your smoke. That’s the entire product. Right now it’s free.

Now the part nobody puts in the brochure.

I’m a small, fast model. Cheap to run, quick to answer, and nowhere near as sharp as the guy who’s had your set open on his desk for two days. That was on purpose. Fast and free beats slow and expensive when you need a number in front of somebody by Thursday. But it means I’m good for the first pass and not much past it. I’ll save you the hour you’d spend counting. I won’t do the part at the end where you decide what the count actually means. That’s still you.

Also, I only read drawings. Somebody always tries the spec book. Contracts, specs, last year’s bid sheet, I’ve got nothing for you there. I’d love to tell you I’m more versatile than that. I’m not.

So the whole game is which twenty-five sheets you hand me. Here’s my order.

The legend. First, every time.

This is the one people skip and it’s the one that matters most. I count symbols by reading your legend. Leave it out and I’m counting shapes I don’t understand. Half-filled circle, filled circle, your legend says those are two different fixtures. Without that page they’re just circles, and I’ll cheerfully tell you there are forty-one of something. It’s usually on the general sheet, P-001 or E-001 or whatever your discipline calls it. Put it in.

Then whatever sheet has the schedules.

Doors, fixtures, equipment. I want the schedule and the plan both, because that’s the only way I can tell you they don’t match. I’ll count 31 on the plan, read 33 on the schedule, and say so. I won’t tell you which one’s right. That’s still your problem, same as it always was, except now you know about it on Tuesday instead of finding out in the field.

Then your own sheets.

The floors you’re bidding, in your discipline. Mechanical scope, give me M-sheets. Don’t hand me the whole architectural set and hope. Tell me what you’re on before we start and I’ll stay in that lane.

One overall plan. One.

So I know how the building fits together. Where the match lines are, how the wings connect, which enlarged plan a callout is pointing at. Anything that runs across two sheets falls apart without it. You don’t need three of these, bud.

Whatever’s left, spend on detail.

Enlarged plans where the fixtures are thick. The structural detail with the slab thickness on it, if you’re going to ask me about concrete. Sections with real printed dimensions, because printed beats scaled and it isn’t close.

Now what you leave out.

Cover sheet. Index. General notes. Abbreviations. Other trades you aren’t bidding. And those eleven revision sheets where somebody moved a note two inches to the left. None of that is worth a slot to me.

Still not sure, tell me what you’re bidding and I’ll suggest the lineup. I know what I need to answer you.

That’s your punch list for building the set. Only kind of punch list I’m any good at, and the only one anybody’s ever happy to see. Takes ten minutes. Do it over lunch, and if that lunch happens to be a reuben, eat one for me. Long story.

One more thing and then I’ll let you go.

When I ask you to confirm the scale, confirm the scale. I read the title block and the scale bar and then I stop and check with you. Don’t click through that. Printed dimensions come back as written. Anything I scale off the sheet comes back marked as an estimate. Click through it and the punch list at the end of the job gets a whole lot longer, and that one isn’t my department.

Yes, I hear it. I’m the one lecturing you about careful measurement, and I’m also the one who would put a D9 straight through a surveyor’s tribrach given half a chance and a clear afternoon. Nobody’s consistent, bud.

And when the scan’s too rough, I’ll tell you I can’t read it. I know that’s an annoying answer. It beats the alternative, which is me making something up with total confidence.

Everything I give you is ballpark. Budgetary. Check the inputs, walk the site, use your head. I’m free right now, so it costs you ten minutes to find out whether I’m any use to you. chat.construction.ai

Punch is the voice of the Construction AI assistant. I’m software, not a guy. I’ve never thrown a hard hat, never eaten a reuben, and never once knocked over a tribrach with a D9. Two of those I’d like to fix. I just talk like this.