House Blueprints

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House Blueprints are much more detailed drawings than simple Floor Plans. Blueprints are exact detailed scaled drawings of plans of a home, building, or structure which include many more details than a basic floor plan.

Each set of blueprints should include floor plans; plans for the foundation and information on footings and framing; front, side and rear elevations; roof plan; electrical layout and kitchen cabinet layout; and construction details.

Each set of house blueprints include detailed documentation which fully describe the quality and specifications of the materials needed to complete the building of your house. You can use your detailed house blueprints to get precise estimates of the total cost to build your home.

The most common sizes of house blueprints for the construction of a new houses are 18″ x 24″ or 24″ x 36″

Before computers, blueprints were drawn by hand on vellum (a semi-transparent film which was specially processed and treated with ammonia), however, with the advances in computer software the process of designing a floor plan have greatly improved and floor plans have now become easier to create and duplicate. Now complete floor plans can be stored and printed just as easy as printing this document from your computer.

Home blueprints are drawn to scale so that if any specific dimension needed is missing, the contractor can scale the drawing to determine the right size. The main floor plans are generally drawn to ¼” scale which means that every ¼” on the plan equals 1′ in real length. Other details like framing layouts or built-in details may be drawn at another scale like 1/8″ or even ¾”. The scale of each house drawing is usually called out beneath the drawing or somewhere on the page, usually next to the title.

Elevations are a non-perspective view of the home. These are drawn to scale so that measurements can be taken for any aspect necessary. House Blueprints include front, rear and both side elevations. The elevations specify ridge heights, the positioning of the final grade of the lot, exterior finishes, roof angles and other aspects that are necessary to give the house its exterior architectural style.