Existing conditions, as built, and record drawings, side by side

Three names get used for drawings of the same building, and the overlap causes real mistakes: an architect orders one thing, a surveyor delivers another, and a lender asks for a third. They describe one building at three different moments in its life.

	Existing conditions drawings	As built drawings	Record drawings
When	Before any design work	After construction is finished	After the permit is closed
What they show	The building as measured today	What was actually built, against what was approved	The approved set, updated with the changes made during the job
Who makes them	A capture service, a drafter, or the architect’s own staff	A licensed surveyor or the contractor, depending on who is asking	The architect of record, from the contractor’s redlines
Who asks for them	The architect, before schematic design	A lender, a buyer, or a building department closing out a permit	The owner, for the building’s file
Sealed	No	Often, when a surveyor prepares them	Yes, by the architect of record
What Vernier makes	This	This, in the architect’s sense of the words	Not this

Existing conditions drawings

Measured drawings of the building as it stands, made before anything is designed. They record every wall, opening, ceiling height, and floor to floor height as it is now, not as the original permit set described it or as the tax record estimates. They are the base layer: the architect draws the proposed work over them, and the proposed set carries the architect’s seal.

This is what the guide to existing conditions drawings covers end to end, and what every Vernier project delivers: floor plans drafted to ANSI Z765-2021, a DWG export, a measurable walkthrough, a room and opening report, and the point cloud, with drafted CAD, elevations, and a 3D model as add ons.

As built drawings

Here the words split. When an architect or a contractor says as built drawings, they almost always mean the thing above: measured drawings of the existing building. That is why most of this site uses the phrase, and why the cost pages are titled with it.

When a land surveyor, a lender, or a building department says as built, they mean a verification that completed construction matches the approved plans. In New Jersey a surveyor’s as built is what a buyer’s lender or a township asks for before a Certificate of Occupancy. It locates the finished structure on the lot, often with grades and setbacks, and it is sealed. It is about compliance, not about the next renovation. If a surveyor quotes you an as built and you wanted a base plan to design on, you have ordered the wrong document.

Record drawings

The approved construction set, revised to show what changed during the job. The contractor keeps redline markups through construction, and at closeout the architect of record transfers them into a clean set, which the owner keeps. Record drawings describe a building at the moment the permit closed. Ten years and two renovations later they are as out of date as any other old set, which is how a building ends up needing existing conditions drawings again.

Which one your project needs

Starting a renovation, an addition, a fit out, or a furniture plan: existing conditions drawings. Closing a permit, selling, or refinancing: ask whether the request means a surveyor’s verification, because that is licensed work and a different price. Keeping a building’s file current after a job: record drawings from the architect of record.

Two of the three can come from the same visit. A scan made before design is the existing conditions set. The same scan can be repeated after construction and compared against the design to produce the contractor’s as built in the architect’s sense. The surveyor’s version cannot, because it needs the lot, a datum, and a seal. Land surveyor, inspector, or as built drawings walks through who is licensed to produce what.