AI for drywall and acoustical contractors, tested on partition schedules you already priced.

One wall is written in several places. Metal framing sits in Section 09 22 16, board and finishing in 09 21 16 or 09 29 00, ceilings in 09 51 13, and the drawings hold the rest. Texas State University's 09 21 16 standard, revised in January 2015, sends rated, acoustical and perimeter-security partitions to the structural deck. It holds every office partition to the deck with batts for at least STC 45, stops the others 6 inches above the ceiling, and bars head tracks from anchoring to a ceiling grid. All of that ends up as one tag on one schedule, and every takeoff your desk has finished shows how that tag was read.

The finish scale belongs to the whole trade. The Gypsum Association's GA-214, in use since 1990, runs finish levels from 0 through 5, and its 2015 rewrite came out with AWCI, the Ceilings and Interior Systems Construction Association, the painting contractors' association and the Drywall Finishing Council. In September 2023 the association released the 2021 edition and its quick reference in Spanish and French, as free downloads. BJC HealthCare's hospital standards make Level 3 the minimum on concealed wall surfaces and Level 4 on the others. A finish level changes the labor on every square foot, so it belongs on the takeoff line beside the board.

The assembly manuals keep moving. The association reissues GA-600, its fire resistance and sound control design manual, every three years with the building code cycle. The 2024 edition added more than 65 systems, passed 800 detailed assemblies, and keeps explanatory notes on what may be substituted or altered. A rated wall priced under one edition can be submitted under another, and each package your project managers sent shows what they found.

Ceilings answer to a rulebook of their own. California's Division of the State Architect covers lay-in ceilings on work under its jurisdiction, public schools among them, in IR 25-2. Its November 2023 revision, under the 2022 California Building Code, points to ASTM C635, C636 and E580, rates the grid heavy duty, and stops at flat, level ceilings of 4 pounds per square foot or less with luminaires and services counted, so anything heavier needs project-specific design. Hospital owners add their own lines: BJC permits 2 by 2 and 2 by 4 panels and wants reflected ceiling plans to show heights above the finished floor. Requirements vary by state and project, and this page gives no code advice.

Rated walls get inspected before they close. The fire department in Cherokee County, Georgia, gives one of its new-construction inspections over to fire-stopping and rated wall assemblies. On a one-hour firewall the inspector checks joints and screw pattern before tape and mud go on, and on a two-hour wall the first layer before the second goes up, with approved plans on site throughout. What your package named is what someone later looks for in the wall.

People keep every judgment call. In the proof of concept an estimator checks every takeoff. Your project manager, with the design team or authority having jurisdiction, decides every rated-assembly question. The test uses copies only, stays away from your estimating, job cost and submittal systems and from any live bid or submittal, and never says that an assembly meets a rating or that a substitution is acceptable. Certified payroll stays out.