The First 10 Things to Check on a New Set of Contract Drawings
The First 10 Things to Check on a New Set of Contract Drawings
The first set of eyes on a new drawing package sets the tone for the entire project. If you catch the missing connection loads, the TBD anchor bolt pattern, and the spec section that references a different AISC edition than the drawings — before work starts — you have time to resolve them cleanly. If you catch them six weeks in, you're reworking drawings, rewriting submittals, and explaining to the GC why you need another two weeks. Reviewing a new set of contract drawings requires a specific sequence, not a passive scan while you're looking for the framing plan. Every detailer and fabricator PM should run a checklist on day one of every project. Below is ours: ten things, in order — the ones that surface most problems before they become schedule issues.
Why the First Hour with a New Drawing Set Determines the Next Six Weeks
A structural steel detailing scope doesn't fail at closeout. It fails at kickoff — or more precisely, it fails in the gap between what the detailer assumed at kickoff and what the drawing set actually said. That gap is almost always findable in the first hour if you're looking for it. Most detailers aren't. They open the framing plans, start locating columns, and get moving. That momentum feels productive. What it actually does is bury open questions under two weeks of modeling time.
The checklist below isn't a quality audit. It's a gap-finding exercise. You're not checking whether the EOR's design is correct — that's not your scope. You're checking whether the drawing set gives you enough information to do your job without stopping, waiting, and redoing work. Those are different questions, and the second one is entirely answerable on day one.
Check #1: Confirm IFC Status
Not every "structural" drawing package is issued for construction. Confirm the drawing issue status in the title block before anything else. A package stamped "Issued for Bid," "Design Development," or "Issued for Coordination" is not an IFC set, and building a Tekla model against it exposes you to significant rework risk if the EOR revises the framing before IFC issue. If there's any ambiguity — if the drawings are stamped with a date but no explicit issue status — get that in writing from the fabricator before you start the clock.
Check #2: Read the Title Block Completely
Project name, address, structural engineer of record, issue date, and revision history. All of it. The revision history tells you whether you're looking at Rev 0 or a set that has already moved three times before you touched it. If there are prior revisions, understand what changed. A column line that moved in Rev 2 means your material list assumptions from the RFP may already be wrong. The EOR's name and firm matter too — you'll be issuing submittals to them, and knowing whether they're a one-person shop or a 40-person firm affects realistic RFI turnaround expectations.
Check #3: Read the General Notes Before You Touch the Framing Plans
This is the most commonly skipped step and the source of more rework than almost anything else. The general notes define the governing code edition, the design loads, the base material specifications, the governing weld standard (typically AWS D1.1), and the connection design responsibility. They also call out any project-specific requirements — special inspection scope, seismic design category, pre-qualified connection requirements if the project is SDC D or above. Read them completely, in sequence. If the notes reference AISC 360-10 and you're working in a state that has adopted IBC 2021, flag that immediately. Edition mismatches create submittal rejection cycles that are entirely avoidable.
Check #4: Confirm Material Specifications Are Fully Called Out
Every steel element in the project needs a called-out material grade: wide flanges, HSS, angles, plates, anchor rods, bolts, and shear studs. The most common gaps are HSS grades (ASTM A500 Grade C vs. A1085 matters for connection design), anchor rod grades (F1554 Grade 36 vs. Grade 55 vs. Grade 105), and high-strength bolt specifications (ASTM F3125 Grade A325 vs. A490, and whether the connection is bearing or slip-critical per RCSC). If the drawings call out "A36 plate" globally but show moment end plates that require specific yield and tensile minimums, that's a gap. Find it now.
Check #5: Identify the Lateral System
Understanding the lateral load path shapes every connection decision you'll make. Are there moment frames? Braced frames? What type — SCBF, OCBF, EBF? Or is this a rigid diaphragm building with shear connections throughout and lateral resistance handled by concrete cores or masonry shear walls? If there are moment frames, confirm whether the connections are pre-qualified per AISC 358 or designed on a project-specific basis by the EOR. This affects whether you're detailing to a standard connection table or waiting on custom connection designs. Know before you model.
Check #6: Check Column Base Plates and Anchor Bolt Details
Base plates and anchor bolts are consistently among the last things EORs finalize and the first things fabricators need for foundation coordination. Check whether the base plates and anchor bolt patterns are fully designed and called out, or whether the drawings include language like "anchor bolt design by detailer" or "base plate to be designed by EOR — TBD." If they're deferred, find out the expected timeline and confirm the responsibility chain clearly. Anchor bolt setting drawings typically need to go to the GC before steel fabrication begins — an unresolved base plate detail at project start can compress your fabrication window significantly.
Check #7: Identify Connection Types and Confirm Loads Are Called Out
For every distinct connection type in the project — shear tabs, moment connections, braced frame gussets, beam-to-HSS column connections, collector connections — confirm that the required loads or design criteria are stated somewhere in the drawing set. The EOR either needs to show the required shear, moment, and axial demands on the drawings, or they need to explicitly assign connection design responsibility to the EOR of record with a stated design basis. What you cannot work from is a drawing that shows a connection detail with no loads and no design responsibility assigned. That's not a minor omission — it's a missing scope item. Flag it before modeling begins, not after you've built the entire model and the submittal is due in two weeks.
Check #8: Check for Deferred Submittals and "By Others" Notes
Structural drawings routinely defer portions of the work — delegated connection design, joist and deck design per SJI/SDI, curtain wall anchor design, embed plates by the precast supplier. Every one of those deferrals has an owner, and you need to know who that owner is and what their deliverable timeline looks like. "By others" without a named party is a gap. Track every deferred submittal and confirm the coordination sequence: if a delegated connection engineer is designing the moment frame connections, when are those calculations due, and how do they reach you?
Check #9: Confirm the Spec Section Matches the Drawing Set
Pull Division 05 — Metals — and read it against the drawings. The spec governs fabrication and erection standards, surface preparation and coating requirements, inspection and testing requirements, and often the submittal schedule. Conflicts between the spec and the drawings are more common than they should be, particularly on projects where the structural drawings and the project manual were produced by different parties or on different timelines. A spec that calls for SSPC-SP6 blast and a primer system incompatible with the coating spec elsewhere in the project manual is a problem that surfaces at the fabricator's shop — unless you catch it on day one of your new project drawing review.
Check #10: Flag Every TBD, "See Structural," and "Coordinate With" Note
Go through the drawing set and mark every instance of "TBD," "by EOR," "coordinate with MEP," "see architectural," and any other placeholder language. This is your RFI list before the project starts. Some of these will resolve themselves before they affect your schedule. Many won't. The ones that won't are the ones where the EOR hasn't made a final decision, another discipline hasn't completed their design, or the owner hasn't approved a system. You cannot detail around genuine design gaps — but you can surface them early enough that the schedule damage is manageable.
What to Do With What You Find
Document the gaps in a single project log before you start modeling — a simple spreadsheet with the item, the drawing reference, the question, the responsible party, and the date you flagged it. Send it to the fabricator PM on day one with a note that your modeling start depends on resolution of the critical items. That document does two things: it protects your schedule by establishing that you identified the gap immediately, and it creates a shared record that keeps everyone moving in the same direction. A new project drawing review checklist is only useful if the findings go somewhere.
The detailers and fabricator PMs who run this process on every job don't spend less time on projects. They spend their time building, not backtracking.
If you're evaluating detailing partners for your next project, contact NRSteel for a scope review. We work exclusively with fabricators on commercial and institutional structural projects across the Southeast and nationwide — same timezone, direct engineer access, and a defined intake process built around finding the gaps before they find you.