Taking off a multi-story apartment building: drywall and framing walkthrough

An apartment building looks intimidating: dozens of identical units, stacked floors, corridors, stairs and a stack of rated walls. In practice it is one of the more orderly takeoffs, because so much of it repeats. Here is a working method for a multi-story, multi-unit job, with notes from a real plan set we tested.

Step 1: Know the set before you measure

Skim the whole set first. Find the sheet index, the floor plans for each level, the wall-type legend, the unit plans and the rated-assembly or code sheets. Note which levels are typical and which are unique (a ground floor with lobby and amenity space, a top floor with different ceilings or roof conditions). Check that each sheet's scale is printed and consistent. Our guide on reading blueprints covers the basics.

Then locate the wall-type legend. On an apartment set it often defines a dozen or more assemblies. If it is hard to read, see what to do when the legend is missing or scrambled.

Step 2: Organize by wall type, not by room

Group every wall by its legend tag. Typical apartment families include:

• Demising walls between units, usually rated and often with acoustic insulation.
• Corridor walls, commonly rated.
• Interior non-bearing partitions inside the unit.
• Plumbing and chase walls with different framing depth.
• Shaft and stair walls, often rated, sometimes a different system entirely.
• Exterior wall interior face, which gets board on one side only.

Totals by wall type give you what a supplier and a crew actually need. A running total of "wall footage" does not. Our page on wall-type matching shows how a measured wall gets tied to a legend row.

Step 3: Handle rated and non-rated walls separately

Two walls can be the same thickness and still be different assemblies. In the Freeport Square plan set we tested, wall types A4 and C4 are the same thickness, but one needs fire-rated board. Thickness alone will not tell you. Mark rated walls from the legend and the plan's rating hatching or tags, count them as their own group, and keep their board type, layers and insulation separate. Mixing rated and non-rated footage is a common reason board comes up short or gets over-ordered.

Also look for details that affect rated walls: shaft-wall systems, rated ceiling conditions and penetrations. Those may be in the sections, not the floor plan.

Step 4: Skip sheets that redraw the same walls

A plan set shows the same walls many times: floor plans, reflected ceiling plans, finish plans, enlarged unit plans, interior elevations and details. You count each wall once, from the floor plan. Adding walls from every sheet inflates your totals. Sheets to treat with care:

• Reflected ceiling plans, which redraw the partitions. Use them for ceiling scope, not wall footage.
• Elevations, which show the same walls from the side.
• Detail sheets, where lines inside a detail are not additional walls.
• Code, life-safety and site plans, which reference walls already on the floor plans.
• Other trades' sheets such as mechanical or electrical.

We learned this the hard way. On the same Freeport Square set, our first run counted walls on ceiling plans, elevations and details too. After counting walls from floor plans only, the total dropped from 17,648 LF to 8,684 LF, with eleven sheets listed as not counted. The write-up is counting walls once. Keep the sheets you skip in a written list so a reviewer can see what you left out and why.

Step 5: Use unit repetition

Most apartment buildings have a small number of unit types, repeated across floors. Take off one unit of each type carefully, including every wall, closet, chase and tub surround. Then multiply by the count of that unit type. Check the count against the unit schedule or a unit-mix table, and look for units that differ because of position, such as end units, accessible units or units next to a stair.

Do the same for typical floors: take off one corridor and core layout and multiply by the number of identical floors. Then adjust for floors that are not typical. Be careful with story heights if floor-to-floor dimensions differ, because wall height drives board and stud length.

Step 6: Turn quantities into materials

Once footage is grouped by type, convert it with each assembly's recipe: studs by spacing, track by run, board by area and layers, insulation by cavity. Use the drywall sheet guide, the metal stud guide and the calculators. Then apply your waste factors by material. Pricing and labor are the next step. See how subcontractors build the bid.

What this looked like on a real plan set

We ran the 21-page Freeport Square apartment plan set, a multi-building project, through ReadMyBlueprint. The result was 68.9% of walls auto-matched to a spec on the set's own legend, and 99.8% after one "Confirm all." The rest came back flagged for a person to confirm instead of being guessed. That is one plan set, not a general promise. The full account, including what went wrong first, is in the Freeport Square write-up. The tool measures the walls and groups them, and the estimator verifies the result before it goes into a bid.

Note that Freeport Square is a multi-building apartment project, and we make no claim that it matches your building's height, unit mix or rated assemblies. Treat this method as a framework and adjust it to your drawings.

A quick checklist

1. Skim the full set and locate the legend.
2. List the sheets you will count and the sheets you will skip.
3. Group walls by legend tag, with rated walls separate.
4. Take off one of each unit type, then multiply and cross-check against the unit schedule.
5. Convert to materials by assembly, then apply waste.
6. Flag assumptions and write exclusions.

Common questions

How do you do a takeoff on an apartment building?

Skim the set, find the wall-type legend, group walls by legend tag, take off one of each repeating unit type and multiply, count each wall once from floor plans, then convert quantities to materials and apply waste.

Which sheets should I skip for a drywall wall takeoff?

Count walls from floor plans. Treat ceiling plans, elevations, detail sheets, code and site plans, and other trades' sheets as references, since they redraw walls already counted.

How do I handle rated walls on an apartment takeoff?

Identify them from the wall-type legend and plan tags, count them as separate groups, and keep their board type and layers separate from non-rated walls of the same thickness.

Can software do an apartment building takeoff?

Software can measure walls from vector PDFs and match them to legend rows. In our Freeport Square test, 68.9% of walls were auto-matched and 99.8% after one Confirm all. An estimator still verifies the result.