The day I found out my layer colors were all backwards

So I've been drafting for about 5 years now, mostly residential stuff. Last month I was helping a buddy with a commercial project and he looked at my color scheme for the MEP layers and just laughed. Turns out I had been using red for ductwork and blue for plumbing which is apparently totally backwards from the standard. Nobody ever corrected me because the drawings were always just for our small crew. Has anyone else run into a basic standard they missed for years?

3 comments

3 Comments

tyler_wilson27d ago

Oh man, I did basically the same thing but with line weights. I had been using like a 0.5mm for my property lines and a 0.1mm for my building outlines for like three years. Just figured thicker lines were for stuff that mattered more. One day a surveyor buddy glanced at my plot and asked if I was trying to hide the structure. I felt like such a goof. It is wild how you can just fall into a habit that makes total sense to you but is totally backwards to everyone else. I bet your buddy's laugh was the same mix of confusion and pity I got.

vera30826d ago

@tyler_wilson I once drew all my north arrows upside down for a year and nobody said anything until a client asked if I was trolling them.

parker_thomas5d ago

Ha, yeah I know that feeling. It's like those times at the grocery store where everyone else puts the cold stuff together on the belt and you're just throwing it all random. We all build these little systems that only make sense in our own heads. @tyler_wilson your line weight story is a perfect example because it sounds logical until you think about it from the other person's view. Funny how we can do something totally backwards for years and just never question it until someone points it out.