3 mistakes to avoid in reinforcement plans

“The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.” – Theodore ROOSEVELT

Have you heard this phrase? Do you agree? How do you react to mistakes made by you or your colleagues? Do you have a way to avoid the most common mistakes?

At the beginning, when we started working on reinforcement plans, at Kreyo we thought that it was not possible to make mistakes, if we were focused and precise in our work. But it turned out that this was not the case. Why? Well, quite simply because “The only man who never makes mistakes is the one who never does anything”! But what should we do with our mistakes? Ignore them and keep working the same way? Absolutely not! This will not only affect our customers, but also our reputation as a design office!

That’s why, in order to ensure that our clients will always receive the highest quality drawings, at Kreyo we took the time to do a brief analysis of the mistakes we made most often in our work. Subsequently, brief recommendations were made on how to avoid these errors, so that the correct execution of reinforcement drawings could be guaranteed.

Here are the mistakes and how to avoid them:

Mistake 1: There are missing separators between the beds of the reinforcement in the slab or in the walls

It often happens that in the input data there is a lack of information on the reinforcement of the constructive provisions. This is normal because the designer who must make the reinforcement plan must be familiar with this type of reinforcement. However, in the speed, we can forget to set up either the chairs in the slabs, or the pins in the walls. As a result, the drawing is often blocked by the external control. This can cause delays on the site and the reinforcement plan must be corrected by the design office.

How to avoid this?

At Kreyo, we have a short list of items included in the reinforcement drawings that we always check before finishing the drawing. This list contains all types of constructive reinforcement. This way we make sure that even in a dynamic situation, we won’t forget anything.

Mistake 2: Incorrect number of bars in repetitive reinforced concrete elements

When working on reinforcement drawings of prefabricated reinforced concrete elements, often certain elements are more numerous, that is to say we have 5.6 or even 50 elements instead of just one. This is normal because we are looking for the repeatability of the elements in order to optimize the structure. However, in the reinforcement plan, only one prefabricated element of each type is represented. And if we forget to note that this element is in parts, in the end on the site there will be for example a single bar of 12m instead of 50 bars of 12m. Of course in case of such an error the design office must correct the reinforcement plan and recheck all the elements.

How to avoid this?

The easiest way is to do an intermediate check after drawing the reinforcement plan for each individual element. In this way we are sure that even if we are in a hurry by the schedule we will not forget anything and we will reduce the communication time for future corrections.

Mistake 3: Not everything is visible on .pdf

Once we have done everything in the best possible way, that everything is checked and that we are sure that we do not have technical errors in our reinforcement plan, it is very unpleasant to have feedback from the engineer of control indicating that something is not seen correctly in our drawing. Either a part of the plan is cut, or in the nomenclature a bar mark is missing. Sometimes in our desire to send designs on time, we tend to ignore the simplest check of all – take one last look at our design before sending it. As a result, the drawing office must take longer to correct the poorly prepared drawing.

How to avoid this?

Always check the .pdf file before sending. If you think you won’t see everything on .pdf, print the drawing – not only will you notice if there are no cut parts of the various elements, but you will also be able to visually judge if what you have done is right and easy to read.

At Kreyo, we follow these three recommendations in the preparation of each reinforcement plan. This is how we guarantee that our plans are precise, on time and easy to execute on site.

If for you it is important that your reinforcement plans are correct, made according to the project schedule and easily readable for people on site, contact us so that we can discuss with you what your situation is and how we can help you.

You can check some of our projects here: https://kreyo.bg/projects/