Amy and Samuel

When we submit drawings on our vault for the Town Building Permit and to certain other authorities, they demand we email them the Engineer’s stamp on the PDF copy or other electronic format record.  They prefer them as electronic records as they keep their files on their server for future reference.

I did this recently for a vault in North Texas and also in Columbia, MD  and Cumberland, MD.  Massachusetts also prefers electronic copies of the Architect and Engineer’s drawings with the Wet Stamp and the Structural Calculations as part of the package and they must be stamped.  

Many times they require this same Engineer to perform a Field Inspection and provide and Affidavit that the work shown on the drawings was installed as shown and stamped on their Permit Drawing.  

The trend is definitely to move strongly towards electronic files.

Towns and Counties are notorious for losing the hard copies.  When we come back to perform an expansion of the vault and we approach the town a year or more after the first base vault was installed, they cannot find the original drawings to reference.  We almost always have to show them what their original drawings showed.  I believe the reason for this is that hard copy roll drawings are hard to store and most towns will not invest in expensive flat files.  So they roll them up, put them in the corner, soon that pile moves to the basement and soon that pile moves to “Roll Drawing Heaven.”

I am not a records manager, so take this as real world anecdotal experience not some written state standard.

For all the transience of digital records, they do last longer than roll drawings in a tight budgeted Town Hall or County Engineering Office.


Ironically Morrisville, NC wanted hard copies and that area is very sophisticated on their Plan review.  But I expect that to change in the near future.

Hugh Smith
FIRELOCK Fireproof Modular Vaults
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(610)  756-4440    Fax (610)  756-4134
WWW.FIRELOCK.COM





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