Irrigation takeoffs from the plan, legend and specification, drafted as one quote list your desk can check.

Commercial irrigation work reaches your branch as a plan set: irrigation sheets with a legend, an irrigation schedule, notes, and sometimes a Division 32 specification. Someone counts symbols by zone, reads the legend for head and nozzle types, finds the pipe classes and sizes, and builds the material list the contractor wants back.

For the test, AI reads copies of those plan sets and drafts the quote list: every zone and valve callout as drawn, head and nozzle types from the legend, pipe classes and sizes as called out, controller and sensor requirements from the specification, and a list of every place the plan, legend and specification disagree, each with its sheet or section. It sets no price and picks no substitute. Your reviewer lays each draft beside the quote your team sent.

The legend is the catalog for the sheet. Thornton, Colorado's design checklist wants an equipment schedule with a symbol unique to each element, its quantity, a description, product details such as manufacturer, model and size, and whatever radius, GPM or PSI applies. Its sample row puts a 12-inch pop-up, a rotary nozzle and pressure reduction into one entry. On your quote that can be several lines: Western Michigan University's draft section wants built-in pressure regulation in its 4-inch and 12-inch spray bodies and a check valve on every head. The draft counts each symbol, copies the nozzle, radius and PSI from the legend, and splits a symbol into lines only the way your own quotes did.

Zones and valve callouts are labels, not counts. Thornton wants every control valve identified by controller and zone number, size and flow. California's model landscape ordinance, at 23 CCR 493.2.2, wants flow, application rate and operating pressure shown for each station and a number on each valve. Texas's plan check form under 30 TAC 344.61 asks for zone flow and the location, type and size of every valve and pressure regulation component, and Texas State University's campus standard adds a legend with all symbols used and a design pressure on the sheet. The draft lists each zone as drawn with its valve number, size and flow, and totals valves against controller stations, so a sheet showing more zones than stations gets flagged.

One word for pipe, three answers. The University of Houston's master specification runs pressure-side pipe up to 2-1/2 inches in Schedule 40, non-pressure pipe from 3/4 inch to 2 inches in Class 200, and 1/2 inch and smaller in Class 315. Texas State runs every mainline in Schedule 40 and every lateral in Class 200 (SDR 21), all in purple. Western Michigan allows Class 200 or flexible polyethylene mainline and Class 160 or 200 laterals, except that all 1-inch pipe is Class 200. Sleeves are lines too: Texas State wants at least 4-inch Schedule 40, a foot past each side and capped, and Western Michigan sizes them at twice the pipe inside and adds one more 4-inch sleeve for future use wherever sleeves are shown. Houston even sets an allowance, one added foot per 100 feet of pipe for snaking. All three call their layouts diagrammatic, so the draft carries size and class as called out and leaves length to your desk when the plan states none.

The controller usually lives in the specification. On Western Michigan's campus the controller answers to the building automation system, that contractor furnishes the mainline flow meter, and the backflow preventer is installed by others, so those lines may not belong on your quote. Texas State wants a combined flow meter and master valve on every mainline, pulsing every 10 gallons, and two spare valve wires along each mainline run. California's model ordinance requires master shut-off valves on all projects, with one exception, sensors for rain and freeze as the climate calls for, and flow sensors on non-residential landscapes. Thornton requires a rain sensor and a master valve on commercial systems and strongly recommends a flow sensor. The draft writes each requirement as a line or as by others, with its section.

The documents disagree, and sometimes say which one wins. Western Michigan's draft makes anything called for in the plans or the specifications binding as if called for in both, so a spec-only line belongs on the list. It also gives substitutions two clocks: ten business days before the bid date in one section, after award in another. Houston's specification says valve boxes and lids shall be green, then describes black boxes with lockable lids lettered RC and QC. California repealed the old Section 492.7 on January 2, 2025 and moved the irrigation plan to 493.2.2, so an older specification can cite a section that no longer exists. The draft shows each conflict with its sheet or section and chooses nothing. Your reviewer, usually your most senior irrigation counter person, checks zone counts, nozzles, pipe by size, spec-only lines, by-others lines and every conflict. This describes published documents as we read them; it is not engineering or legal advice.

When your reviewer says yes, new plans get the same draft for about 30 days.

A person at your branch approves every quote before a contractor sees it, and nothing reaches your ERP or a live quote without that sign-off.

Each draft keeps getting checked against what your desk would have sent. A next job would be a separate decision with its own price.