Conformed drawings vs record drawings vs as-builts

Three sets, two ends of the project

The names are close and the documents are not, so the table does the work. The column that matters most is the last one: what each set certifies. The conformed set certifies nothing about the building; it records what was agreed. The as-built markups are the contractor’s statement of what was done. The record drawings are the architect’s redrawing of that statement, and they say so on their face.

Why the architect’s set is not called as-built

The phrase as-built drawings makes a claim: this is how the building was built. An architect cannot make that claim honestly, because the architect was not there for most of it. Site visits under a standard agreement are periodic, and the architect’s observations are of the work in progress at intervals, not of every pipe before it was covered. What the architect can honestly say is that the drawings have been revised to incorporate the changes the contractor reported. That is a record drawing, and the AIA documents use that term for the architect’s set deliberately.

The distinction is not pedantry. A record drawing that is labelled as-built, and that turns out to be wrong because the contractor’s markup was wrong, has put the architect’s name on the contractor’s error. Record drawings carry a note to the effect that they are based on information furnished by the contractor and that the architect has not verified it. The note is standard, it is honest, and it is the first thing a lawyer looks for.

What the contractor’s markups must contain

A201-2017 §3.11, Documents and Samples at the Site, is short and specific; in paraphrase, the contractor maintains at the site one copy of the drawings, specifications, addenda, change orders and other modifications, in good order and marked currently to indicate field changes and selections made during construction, together with the approved submittals, and delivers them to the architect when the work is complete. Marked currently is the phrase to hold the contractor to: an as-built set drawn from memory in the last week of the job is not what the clause describes.

In practice the markups that matter are the ones nobody can see afterwards. Where the underground utilities actually run. Where the plumbing was rerouted around a beam. Which of two alternate details was built at each location. Dimensions that moved. Equipment that was substituted, and the approved submittal that substituted it. A good superintendent keeps a set on the trailer wall and marks it in red as the work goes in; a good architect asks to see it at every site visit, because the request is what keeps it current.

• Field changes: anything built differently from the current drawings, with the RFI, ASI or change order that allowed it.
• Concealed conditions: routing and locations of work that is covered by the time anyone else looks.
• Selections: the alternate, the colour, the product chosen where the documents allowed a choice.
• Dimensions: the ones that moved, measured, not estimated.
• Approved submittals: filed with the set, because they are the record of what was actually supplied.

What the architect’s record set contains

The record drawings start from the current set, which is the conformed set with every later revision incorporated, and add the contractor’s markups. The order matters. An architect who starts from the bid set and tries to add everything at once is redoing the revision history from scratch. An architect who has kept the set current through construction, superseding sheets as each ASI and bulletin landed, has a record set that is one pass of markups away from done.

Each record sheet carries three things: the revision history that got the sheet to its final state, the as-built information drawn in and attributed, and the record-drawing note. The sheet index is reissued as a record index, listing every sheet with the revision it ended on and the issuance that put it there. That index is the single most useful page in the set for whoever inherits the building, because it is the one page that says how many times each drawing changed and why.

B101-2017 distinguishes two services here, and the distinction is worth putting in the proposal. As-designed record drawings, §4.1.1.16, are the architect’s drawings updated to reflect the changes the architect made during construction: the addenda, ASIs, bulletins and change orders. As-constructed record drawings, §4.1.1.17, go further and incorporate the contractor’s field markups. The first can be produced from the architect’s own records; the second depends on the contractor having kept theirs.

Conformed vs record: the same set, years apart

Put the conformed set and the record set side by side and the difference between them is the history of the project. Every sheet that changed, changed because of an instrument: an ASI, a bulletin, a construction change directive, a change order, a field condition. If every one of those instruments superseded its sheets properly, with the old sheet kept and the new one marked, then the record set is simply the last page of a history that began with the conformed set, and the two together are a complete account.

If they did not, the record set is a reconstruction. Someone sits down at closeout with the conformed set, a folder of PDFs named by date, and the contractor’s markups, and tries to work out which sheet is the latest. This is where record drawings go wrong, and it is why the discipline that produces a good record set is not applied at closeout but during construction, one issuance at a time. The conformed set page explains how the baseline is made; this is why it matters that the baseline is never overwritten.

Field set vs record set

Two more names belong in this conversation because they are the ones a crew and an owner actually use. The field set is the current set: the drawings the contractor should be building from today, which is the conformed set with every revision to date superseding its sheets. The record set is what was built. During construction they are different documents and both are needed; at substantial completion the field set stops changing and becomes the basis of the record set.

LODE keeps both, under those names. The Field Set is regenerated on every issuance and holds only the current sheets and sections. The Revision Record Set holds every superseded sheet, stamped, so the history is kept rather than overwritten. On the last day of construction the Field Set is the as-designed record, the Revision Record Set is how it got there, and the contractor’s markups are what turn it into the as-constructed record. The Field Set and the Revision Record Set in Files.

When each set is due

The conformed set is due at award, before the first construction meeting. The contractor’s as-built markups are due when the work is complete, under §3.11, and in practice should be reviewed at substantial completion and listed among the closeout submittals so that final payment is not processed without them. The record drawings, if the owner has commissioned them, follow after the markups arrive; a reasonable proposal gives a number of weeks from receipt of complete markups, because the architect cannot start without them and should not be held to a date the contractor controls.

The failure that produces most arguments is the unspecified one: an owner who assumed record drawings were part of the fee, an architect who assumed they were not, and a contractor whose markups were never requested. The fix is three lines, one in each agreement: who marks up, who redraws, and who pays for the redrawing.