Couple's £1million dream home faces demolition because of planning software glitch
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1197279/Computer-error-blamed-couples-1million-dream-home-built-big.html

From the article:

"The Walkers, who have been married for 22 years, had always envisaged their perfect house and began designing it two years ago using computer AutoCAD design software. Eventually planning permission was granted.

But a council inspector now says the dimensions are not the same as the ones submitted and are therefore illegal, which could lead to the couple's four-bedroom home being flattened.

In response, Mr Walker, 50, insists the council is at fault because they did not ask for dimensions for the house at any stage from planning to the building nearing completion.

He said: 'The trouble is that the plans were drawn up with AutoCAD and it's dangerous to use a scale ruler (part of the computer programme's set-up which calculates dimensions) because printers often have these discrepancies with computer-aided design."


It has to be noted that, at the end of the article it does say that "the council listed more than 15 other discrepancies between the formerly approved plans and the development subsequently built." So it's not just the scale of the building that's off, there's other things as well, but still...

 This item is from the Daily Mail, a newspaper known to be a stranger to the concept of accurate non-biased reporting. So you can bet there's more to this than meets the eye.

Now it might well be biased, but "The trouble is that the plans were drawn up with AutoCAD and it's dangerous to use a scale ruler (part of the computer programme's set-up which calculates dimensions) because printers often have these discrepancies with computer-aided design." just doesn't make sense in my mind.

Now perhaps it is just me, but autoCAD makes it pretty easy to list the various lengths and widths on your drawings. And I really don't see how a "printer" can mess these up since they basically say "This line is yay long".  

 Spoken like someone who hasn't dealt with the wtf that is printing in AutoCAD. It's not the printers per se, but the horrifc 'everything is a plotter from 1985' attitude that AutoCAD has toward them.

 That said, yes, the Daily Mail is one step up from the Weekly World News, except its fabrications are designed to outrage uneducated middle England.

On the one hand, it's hard to believe there isn't something else that isn't being reported here.  On the other, this is the Nanny State we're talking about, so the idea of them demolishing private property because the bureaucratic paperwork had errors isn't inconceivable.

PeriSoft:

 Spoken like someone who hasn't dealt with the wtf that is printing in AutoCAD. It's not the printers per se, but the horrifc 'everything is a plotter from 1985' attitude that AutoCAD has toward them.

True, but had the designer bothered with the (incredibly simple) inclusion of a graphic scale, it'd be readily apparent that the drawing was scaled on printing.

morbiuswilters:

On the one hand, it's hard to believe there isn't something else that isn't being reported here.  On the other, this is the Nanny State we're talking about, so the idea of them demolishing private property because the bureaucratic paperwork had errors isn't inconceivable.

 

The nanny state trend is undeniable.  This story, however, seems to be another thing altogether.  The reason plan scale must be correct during plan check is that safety metrics are run at that time. 

Some of the more important scale metrics that are both sanity checked at permit time and then reviewed onsite during construction by an inspector are related to minimum numbers of structural supports mandated per unit of span on anything bearing load, maximum distance between foundational rebar (metal reinforcement contained within concrete foundation), rise vs. run on *all* plumbing lines including condensate runs, maximum permitted surface mounted facade material (huge concern in earthquake country) etc...

 So basically, the plans they submitted were vetted according to measure based safety metrics.  Whether or not the actual scale of the house caused any of these threshholds to be crossed is a different issue entirely.  The civic authority must revisit the issue from square one.  If the house has been built against code then the worst case scenario is it will be torn down.  More likely it can be retrofitted with additional structural support to pass code - but there *should* still be huge fines associated with breaking plan check.  

 

 

Add to that the printer drivers silently doing a letter/legal->A4 conversion, and you have a randomly messed up scale drawing that could lead to anything - including a house abouit to collapse.

Of course at least they know their house will have to be demolished.

Wrong house demolished

OzPeter:

Of course at least they know their house will have to be demolished.

Wrong house demolished

Unless, of course, the owners of this £1M house were smart enough to also misfile the GPS location...

Led2004:

Couple's £1million dream home faces demolition because of planning software glitch

He said: 'The trouble is that the plans were drawn up with AutoCAD and it's dangerous to use a scale ruler (part of the computer programme's set-up which calculates dimensions) because printers often have these discrepancies with computer-aided design."

 

 

It's dangerous to use a scale (which drafters never call a ruler) on a print because lots of things can make the size of the printed line change. This is not a new concern, and it's not limited to drawings form CAD systems. Not uisng measurement tools in AutoCAD, OTOH, is a WTF. If you don't care how long the lines are, save yourself $3,000.00 and draw the plans in Illistrator. Or MS Paint.

PeriSoft:

Spoken like someone who hasn't dealt with the wtf that is printing in AutoCAD. It's not the printers per se, but the horrifc 'everything is a plotter from 1985' attitude that AutoCAD has toward them.

 That said, yes, the Daily Mail is one step up from the Weekly World News, except its fabrications are designed to outrage uneducated middle England.

How about the opinion from someone who graduated as an architect and has been using AutoCAD since version R12?

Building plans (here in Belgium) are submitted on 1/100 scale, but you have to put the dimension of each wall on the plans. Nobody cares if AutoCAD plotted your plans at 1/95 or 1/105. The people from the council or the contrators just work with the dimensions as indicated on plan. NOBODY will take out his trusted ruler to verify if a 1 meter wall is actually 1 centimeter on the plan and not 0.95 or 1.05

BTW: Yay for the metric system

When I saw this headline, I immediately thought of the scene in I, Robot - Dr. Lanning's house is demolished due to a software error... someone 'forgot' to set AM/PM correctly on the automatic house demolisher.

No such luck - nobody has built an automatic house destroyer yet.

Krenn:

No such luck - nobody has built an automatic house destroyer yet.

Sure they have!

Zylon:

Krenn:

No such luck - nobody has built an automatic house destroyer yet.

Sure they have!

Automatic, not atomic, you fool!

Led2004:

"... which could lead to the couple's four-bedroom home being flattened. "

Becomes

Led2004:

Couple's £1million dream home faces demolition because of planning software glitch

Becomes:

Led2004:

£1M house to be demolished due to software error

 

The usual mix of successive exaggeration of the 'facts' (including Led2004's welcome contribution), and attribution of human error to a piece of software that happened to be involved.

If they'd drawn the plans by hand and omitted the dimensions, the headline would presumably read "£100M stately pleasuredome to be trampled to atoms by giant wombats due to pencil error" 

 

Hatshepsut:

£100M stately pleasuredome to be trampled to atoms by giant wombats

 

I would pay for seats to this.

bjolling:

BTW: Yay for the metric system

 

Easy to do with standard too. 

Make all plans be printed in 1:96 ratio.   Now each 1/8 inch mark on the ruler is equivalent to 1 foot in real life.  If you have a 1 3/8 inch wall on the paper then you know it is 11 feet long.   If you want to draw a 74 foot wall then you should draw a 74/8 inch line (9 1/4 inches for the fractionally challanged)