Home/Construction Document Review
Sheet 01 · The Definition, The Scope, The Difference
A construction document review is an owner-side audit of an issued drawing set — checking every sheet and spec against itself and against every other trade before construction starts. Some call it a construction drawing review, others use "drawing set review services" — different name, same job: catching the cross-discipline conflicts that turn into RFIs and change orders once the crew hits the field.
$50K Exposure Guarantee · No Minimum Construction Value · 48-Hour Turnaround
What It Actually Is
Construction document review, construction drawing review, and drawing set review services all describe the same thing: an independent, owner-paid check of the issued set — drawings and specs, every discipline, cross-referenced against each other — run before the set goes to bid or before it's built. It's not a design review and it's not a code-only plan check. It's specifically looking for the conflicts that live between sheets, between disciplines, and between the drawings and the written spec.
The distinction that matters isn't the name — it's who it's for. This review is paid by the owner, reports to no one else, and runs alongside the design team's QC and the GC's coordination review, not instead of either one.
Construction Document Review
The formal name — the full issued set, drawings and specs together.
Construction Drawing Review
Same service — the phrase most field and design teams actually say out loud.
Drawing Set Review Services
The procurement phrase — what it's called when it's being scoped and bought.
What We Actually Do With It
The set is read once, in full, by reviewers who've drawn these sets themselves — not a keyword search, not a single-discipline pass. Four things get checked on every construction document review:
SUBMITTAL CROSS-CHECKS
Specified equipment and finishes checked against what's actually drawn and scheduled.
SPEC-TO-DRAWING ALIGNMENT
Written spec sections read against the sheets they're paired with — not assumed to match.
CODE COMPLIANCE
Fire ratings, egress, and life-safety call-outs checked for consistency sheet to sheet.
MEP COORDINATION
Structural, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing sheets cross-read for routing and clearance conflicts.
The output is a written findings report — every conflict located by sheet and detail, severity-ranked (High/Med/Low), with an estimated dollar exposure and schedule impact on each — plus a live walkthrough meeting. See the full four-step process on the homepage, or the complete step-by-step procedure and turnaround detail on what happens during a construction document audit.
How We Differ
vs. Architect QC
DESIGN INTENT VS. OWNER'S INTEREST
The architect's QC checks the set against design intent. This review is paid by the owner and reports to no one else — run alongside QC, not instead of it. What owner-side QA/QC actually means → A/E firms — see why this isn't a design critique →
vs. GC Coordination Review
PRICING THE WORK VS. FLAGGING THE RISK
The contractor's coordination review is scoped to pricing the work accurately. This review is scoped to surface exposure for the owner, in writing, before it's priced or built. GC's reading this — see why it's not an audit of your work →
vs. BIM Clash Detection
GEOMETRY VS. THE ISSUED PAPER
Clash detection catches modeled elements overlapping in 3D. This review reads the issued set itself — specs, notes, and sheet-to-sheet conflicts that never show up in a model. Full comparison →
Preempt Global also gets compared against clash-list and checklist software directly: see vs. RediCheck, vs. LightTable AI, and vs. CHECKSET.
Why This Matters
the cost of skipping it, across the industry
A clash caught in a construction document review costs one redline and five minutes. The same conflict caught in the field averages $18,400 and a 12-day schedule slip. If your set has multiple trades sharing tight coordination — any project size, no minimum construction value — that's the gap this review is built to close.
The Guarantee
If a construction document review doesn't surface at least $50,000 in documented cost exposure, you don't pay for it — no partial credit, no fine print, on every pricing tier. On a set of this size and complexity, there's always something to find, which is why it's in writing.
See Full Pricing Tiers →Before You Ask
Nothing — they're the same service under two names the industry uses interchangeably, along with "drawing set review." All three describe an independent, owner-side check of the issued set: drawings and specs, cross-checked against each other and across every trade, before construction starts.
Every sheet and spec section, checked against itself and against every other discipline: submittal cross-checks, spec-to-drawing alignment, code compliance, and MEP/structural coordination. The output is a written findings report — every conflict located by sheet and detail, severity-ranked, with an estimated dollar exposure and schedule impact on each.
The owner (or the owner's rep). That's what separates it from architect QC or GC coordination review — both real, both necessary, neither scoped to work for the owner alone. This review is paid by the owner and reports to no one else. See the full breakdown built for owners →
As soon as there's an issued set to review — pre-bid, at IFC, or at any bulletin, addendum, or RFI-driven revision after. Earlier catches more before pricing locks in, but there's no point in the process where it's too late to run one against the current issued set.
No. Clash detection catches geometry — two modeled elements overlapping inside a coordinated model. It doesn't catch a written spec that contradicts the drawing it's paired with, a general note that prohibits what a detail on another sheet requires, or a set that hasn't reached coordination-ready modeling yet. This review reads the issued document itself. Full comparison →
Any set with multiple trades sharing tight coordination — office, manufacturing, warehouse and distribution, healthcare, higher-ed, data centers, multifamily residential, and other complex, multi-discipline builds. There's no minimum construction value; the deciding factor is coordination complexity, not project size.
Sheet 01 of 01 — Last Call
Book a 30-minute demo. Nothing's shared until the NDA is signed, and nothing's billed unless we find something worth the fee.
See the full pitch, pricing, and process on the Preempt Global homepage.
