Senior drafter told me my dimensions looked 'sloppy' and I switched to decimal feet instead of fractions

I've been drafting for about 5 years now, mostly commercial interiors. Always used fractions like most people I knew. But a senior guy I respect looked at my set for a retail buildout and said my dimensions were hard to read at a glance. He said switch to decimal feet just for the grid lines and major wall locations. Tried it on the next set and yeah, it does clean things up a lot. Less mental math when you look at a 12.33' wall vs 12' 4". Has anyone else made that switch? Or still stuck on fractions?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_nancy9h ago

Been on decimals for about 8 years now and never looked back. Fractions worked fine for small stuff like door jambs or cabinet details where you're measuring in inches anyway. But once you start laying out whole buildings with 50 foot walls and irregular angles, decimal feet just makes everything click faster. You catch errors way easier too because 15.67' is obviously wrong when you meant 16.67', but 15' 8" looks almost right to the eye. Only place fractions still win is for coordinating with trim carpenters or framers who think in feet and inches. They get confused when they see 0.25' on a dimension for a 3" reveal. Otherwise it's a cleaner way to work and anyone saying otherwise probably hasn't tried it on a big enough job.

victorclark8h ago

Damn, you might have just converted me. I've always been a fractions guy (old habits) but that point about catching errors really hits home. Never thought about how 15' 8" could slide by while 15.67' screams "that's wrong." Gonna give decimals a real shot on my next project.