BEFORE THE ARCHITECT – BUILDER DRAWINGS – schematic
Commercial Leasehold Improvement, Tutorial and Electrical Wiring Diagram
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This page is dedicated to two ends — an extended tutorial on commercial build outs (and remodels) and a brief case study on wiring to exemplify the tutorial. If you don't want the lecture, you can cut for the case study now.
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TUTORIAL
As a tutorial, this case study makes several points on two levels: one level is the nature of commercial build outs; one level is the character of commercial build outs.
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Nature of Commercial Build Outs
Construction design projects for commercial build outs are a breed apart from most space planning and building design opportunities.
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Little can be left to chance and local codes. Individual businesses have individual needs, functions. Often, it's lighting of certain sorts in certain places or it's electrical outlets of a certain ampacity or ventilation or line-of-sight or storage or firewalls or the ADA, whatever. Most of these specificities are granted or endemic to spaces in a residence. A kitchen is wired in fairly specific and useful ways according to the National Electric Code (NEC), easily accessible loft areas are framed and illuminated in expected manners, passages are usually of standard sizes with standard uses. |
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There can be more design and construction forethought in commercial tenancy, more upfront investment. Most often, tenants have considerable say in what appointments and other building elements go where before possession . . . for a price. So the business owner has to think ahead – sometimes far ahead – to envision what's necessary to survive and prosper in business for considerable time forward, even before the business opens. Construction disruptions once the business concern is operating can be commercially, functionally lethal. |
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Commercial buyers and tenants are not built to build. It doesn't matter whether the commercial buyers are buying leaseholds or deeds. They're built to do their business. Medical publishing. Picture framing. Making belts. Not designing and building. Not thinking about design and construction, not even knowing what to think about design and construction when they are thinking about design and construction. They need help. |
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Commercial design and drafting is often a tough-minded, iterative process arising from both any given business function and the function of the commercial space marketplace. It's tough-minded because the numbers are as hard as the business financials, its cash flow, its creditors, its investors. Things needed must really be necessary. It can be iterative because often the commercial buyer or tenant has choices of space — size, configuration, existing amenities and constructs. A core design of necessity may be adapted several times to conform to a given alternative property's condition. |
These individuated construction needs must be translated into lessor-readable, builder-readable, often building authority-readable formats and terms. And precedent to those formats and terms, there's often a lot of hand-holding to focus their attention, to draw them out, to inform and educate them enough to make the right decisions and know it.
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Character of Commercial Build Outs
The character or function of commercial build outs can be exemplified by the Commercial Leasehold Case Studies. Each of these case studies is a snippet from a string of design and drawing work stretching over half a year as the Autocad Granddad's client carefully considered and considered again. And again.
In the face of the four natures of commercial build outs, what are the correspondent characters?
| NATURE | CHARACTER |
| Little can be left to chance and local codes. | Detail, Annotations, Arrows, Dimensions, Legends, Symbols, and Keys |
| There can be more design and construction forethought in commercial tenancy. | Careful consideration, repeatedly challenged thoughts and designs, time to think it over, multiple views & perspectives |
| Commercial buyers and tenants are not built to build. | Designer patience to bring clients into the process, education, attentive listening, interviewing |
| Commercial design and drafting is often a tough-minded, iterative process. | Time to design, draft, and reflect; question everything, answer honestly |
So what are the common denominators? Exacting. Forethoughtful. Unique. Painfully practical. A departure from the standard package or "white box." All are derivatives of the nature, the function of the commercial build out. Remember: form follows function.
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You can see two different floor plans in Model Drawings, Commercial Leasehold Improvement, Tenant Build Out. This Model Drawing page is devoted to supplemental electrical wiring of a third (and final) leasehold opportunity. |
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Of one of the earlier tenant options, you can see some of its wiring design and diagrams in Builder Drawings, Plans & Elevations, Schematics, Commercial Leasehold Improvement, Electrical Wiring Diagram. |
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Of this last commercial property, there's a plumbing layout of unusual character (in that it includes a 3d line-drawn layout) in Builder Drawings, Plans & Elevations, Schematics, Commercial Leasehold Improvement, Plumbing Layout. |
Let's see these forces of form-follows-function devolve.
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CASE STUDY
As a case study, each of the points of the tutorial above can be identified
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Little can be left to chance and local codes. |
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There can be more design and construction forethought in commercial tenancy. |
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Commercial buyers and tenants are not built to build. |
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Commercial design and drafting is often a tough-minded, iterative process. |
We'll pass up the immediate chance to deal with several other aspects of this commercial build out to center our attention on just one – the electrical wiring. Eventually, the owner/landlord/lessor disregarded many of my client's specific statements of need in filing build out plans with the local building department. That is, we were to get what was good for us, and he knew what that was. While not everyone can be bought, this owner/landlord/lessor lacked such virtue; several thousand dollars extra got my client all (or most all) of that which she had repeatedly requested. My client paid, but needed hard plans. Local architects were buried under weeks of work, while my client anxiously wanted to get on with it — particularly because the "vig" had been paid and this new location for her business would be a big step up from where she currently operated.
Enter the Autocad Granddad. Since we'd been through this designing exercise twice before, we simply needed to adapt. Just watch us adapt. Boy, did we adapt. Notably, my client was a graduate-degreed designer, one-time college professor in commercial design, a successful commercial designing consultant for many years — and still the AG was needed to get it right quickly and to everybody's satisfaction. There wasn't enough time in my client's 7-day workweek to run a business and think through and produce solid plans.
Whatever the basis for my client's recalcitrant rejections – as arbitrary and seemingly abusive as they were – our time had come to get past all that unpleasantness. (Admittedly, it takes a lot of maturity to rise to dispassion when it comes to repeated assaults on your own business.) We submitted blueprints labeled "Supplemental" to those already approved. One of them dealt with prelease supplements to electrical work.
You may recall from other episodes in Case Study #5 that the commercial premises were to be used for three different functions in picture framing: showroom; assembly room; and chop shop. We ended up working within one white box bay at 25'x60', to be split roughly in thirds.
This is the entire space as it appeared in our supplemental submission for electrical work prelease (keeping the postlease work to ourselves). The scale is 1/4"-1'-0" as submitted along with its legend.
In reverse order, the chop shop (on the left of the drawing above, where framing materials are stored and the wood and glass cut) would be the least amended in our prelease plan. An entire wall and more were to be stacked only with frame wood. The only really active workspace would be in the middle of the chop shop room. In this space, fine-tuning lighting and receptacles were minimal and could wait until just before the move-in (along with high-pressure air piping). (Ironically, the electrician conceded on his own to hang chop shop lighting to my client's specs of spacing and height over grade, saving us future time and trouble.)
The assembly room was another matter. It would be packed with equipment and a kitchenette (and half-bath) with wallboarded walls and ceiling and hard decking atop for storage. In-the-wall retrofitting after move-in would be a really messy undertaking, and the assembly room had to be conspicuously free of dust and dirt since this would be where glass and mats and frames and artwork come together. So, forethought mattered.
Here, we'll focus on one area specifically, the kitchenette. The kitchenette area was to function in two ways: workaday storage and preparation of food; incidental workaday cleanup. Wiring needs blossomed. While the approved plans indicated one circuit to this area, my client needed four circuits. Yes, four circuits. Two high and two low, squeezed into a 7'-0" horizontal run of wall. Remember, this is a kitchen which just happens to be located in a commercial workroom area. Appearances deceive.
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Two small appliance circuits flush-mounted over the counter, GFCI-protected, 120V/20A-rated. These would supply the ubiquitous microwave and the coffee-maker which when operated together regularly opened the one circuit supplying both at my client's current commercial abode. |
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One circuit at 120V/15A (minimum, the AG specified 20A) for a hot water reservoir tank (undercounter) to deliver the instant hot water needed often during the day in certain trade-specific cleanups. |
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One circuit at 120V/15A ( minimum, geezer specified 20A) for the undercounter refrigerator. |
Let's take a look.
The coding is fairly standard, and clearly referenced in the Legend (above). We have four dedicated ("D") circuits arranged along one wall, set at inch-heights over floor level (nothing left to chance), two of which circuits are protected by GFCIs ("G") either at the receptacle or the panel.
Can you imagine the time, money, and mess running these circuits after the rock's up, the cabinetry's in, the loft decking is down, the machinery's placed? You want your newest favorite picture framed while all that retrofitting going on? Neither did the AG's client. So think ahead.
Finally, in the Appearances Deceive folder goes another item of design interest in this commercial build out. You thought we're wiring. Wrong. We're excavating, too.
The selling format for my client has evolved over the years to include an island countertop for laying out artwork and framing material. Further, there will be no wall mounted or recessed cabinetry anywhere else in the showroom. None. So fax/copier and phone and card swipe and laptop computer and printer all go under the island counter. Actually, two counters, each roughly centered along the showroom's long midline. Electrical things need electrical power. Short of shoving a generator under each counter, we've got to run lines. But how?
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Running lines down through posting or decorative wall sections would be obtrusive to across-the-showroom views of hanging artwork and frame samples. |
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Laying lines at floor level requires a bumpy covering over which showroom visitors would walk . . . and maybe trip and fall and be hurt and sue and ruin your day job. |
Trench it. Yes, trench it. Dig down and lay conduit through which electrical lines could subsequently be laid. But which island counter or would both have a phone and swipe? A fax, computer (with phone line connection), screen and printer? We settled that the fax, phone and swipe probably would go together, the rest, at the other counter.
Now here are the complexities galore — all overcome with building experience and forethought.
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The NEC prohibits running low-voltage lines (phone lines, intercom lines) in the same conduit with high-voltage lines. So it's two conduits to each island countertop — one for low voltage, one for high voltage. Imagine only one conduit was laid in each trench with phone and power lines sticking out of it at the final inspection; delay store opening, cut the concrete floor again, lay another line, repatch, and wait for a reinspection. No way. Not on the AG's watch. |
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The client has independently contracted for a hardwood strip floor to go down over a continuous vapor barrier and 3/4" exterior-grade ply. So how far down do you set the conduit when you know the subfloor is going down with a Ramset (gunpowder-charged nailer)? You know that the Ramset will part any conduit you lay, bar none – not even black iron or steel if the hit is straight on. The installer allows he'll be driving 1-1/2" long fasteners. So excavate the trench deep enough to hold the conduit with at least 2" of clear elevation to unfinished floor level. (This is exactly the sort of design attention that would be paid by virtually no one else but a broadly-practiced builder involved in the design process.) |
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All the loads at both counters are nonlinear. Non what? Electrical power is used in two rates of flow, steady and intermittent. Incandescent light bulbs and most motors are steady users, i.e., linear. Most fluorescent light bulbs and all computer equipment are intermittent users, i.e., nonlinear. It is good building practice to separate linear and nonlinear loads at least in a couple ways. 1. Don't mix the linear and nonlinear loads on the same circuit if you can help it. Keep the two types of loads on separate circuits. This will go a long way to minimize distortions in power usage, particularly in nonlinear usage. 2. Always pull a grounding neutral (green wire, box ground, machine ground, etc.) along with each pair of single-phase conductors – hot and grounded neutral (common wire, white wire) for each and every circuit laid. It is common practice, notably in commercial applications, to run several circuits with a single grounding neutral. This use of a grounding neutral can overload that neutral in mixed-linear applications, creating a clear and present danger to life and property. So, in our application, run grounding neutrals with the other two high-voltage conductors to each island and dedicate a circuit to the islands (if for no other reason than it is wise practice to power computer equipment and peripheral on their own – dedicated – circuit in order to isolate against surges, spikes and other potentially catastrophic electrical flow distortions.) |
Well. That's a lot of words for a dinky note or two, a couple of arrows and some fuzzy lines on a drawing. Don't think it through and you know not only what's going to hit the fan but also who will be standing there. You got it, the AG and his client. Here's that part of the Supplemental schematic close up (attendant notes 7 & 8 are above in the 2nd pic on this page).
The setup of this Showroom in this configuration took many passes to get it right. This design was an active, iterative process, even when we had gone through this twice before intensively with other commercial property configurations. Relevant issues this time included . . .
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the size and extent of the soffit covering wall-mounted display panels at the Showroom's back wall. |
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exact location of the island countertops relative to the panel displays to let visitors have passageway on both sides of the islands. |
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centering and size of the interior passage from Showroom to Assembly Room, thusly the arrangement and rearrangement of the lights over the panels and the panels' number and spacing, and thusly the placement of the Showroom back wall itself (shifted at least twice). |
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and a half dozen other design hairballs. |
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