Always thought layer management was just nitpicking until I lost a whole drawing

Spent 2 days on a floor plan for a remodel in Denver and had all my electrical, plumbing, and structural lines on one layer. When the client wanted changes, I couldn't hide anything without deleting it. Now I separate every system into its own layer before I even start drawing. Anyone else have a project that taught you the hard way?

2 comments

2 Comments

parker54315d ago

Man, I learned that lesson the same way. I was doing a commercial space and had everything on one layer thinking it would save time. Then the structural engineer needed to see just the beam layouts and I had to start over from scratch. Now I set up my layers before I even open a file, color coded and everything. It adds maybe ten minutes upfront but saves hours of headache later.

the_lee15d ago

Did your buddy cry when it happened? I had a friend who did the same thing on a multi family apartment job. He kept telling me "layers are for rookies" and then the fire inspector asked for just the sprinkler lines and exit paths. He spent a whole weekend rebuilding his file from a PDF export because he couldn't turn anything off. Now he has a template with like 40 layers named stuff like "MEP-Elec-Outlets" and "ARCH-Door-Swing". He even color codes his xref files so you can tell the difference between the existing building and the new addition at a glance. Took him one nightmare to become the most organized guy I know.