Metric and Imperial in America

[dukesys]

Hello All,

I am looking for some feedback from American designers about units of measure.  When I’ve worked in the England and Australia the choice of units has been fairly easy and consistent.  Drafters who worked in the civil discipline use metres, everyone else uses millimetres. 

My questions are these:

1. In America are the main units of measure Metric or Imperial?
2. If you are using Imperial, then what are the different unit breakdowns between disciplines called?
3. In the U.K. and Aus we use 2.5, 3.5, 5 and 7mm high text. In an Imperial drawing what are the standard text heights that you use?
4. Again in the U.K. and Aus an A1(841*594) size drawing sheet is the most common, what is the most common sheet size used in America?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Regards

Martin Duke.

[jggerth1 · Accepted solution]

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@dukesys wrote:

Hello All,

I am looking for some feedback from American designers about units of measure.  When I’ve worked in the England and Australia the choice of units has been fairly easy and consistent.  Drafters who worked in the civil discipline use metres, everyone else uses millimetres. 

My questions are these:

1. In America are the main units of measure Metric or Imperial?
2. If you are using Imperial, then what are the different unit breakdowns between disciplines called?
3. In the U.K. and Aus we use 2.5, 3.5, 5 and 7mm high text. In an Imperial drawing what are the standard text heights that you use?
4. Again in the U.K. and Aus an A1(841*594) size drawing sheet is the most common, what is the most common sheet size used in America?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Regards

Martin Duke.

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1. imperial, feet & inches, -- yards are normally only used as cubic yard measurements

2. architectural and building engineering typicallu use IN as their unit, and use either feet-inches & fractional inches, or feet-inches & decimal inches for dimensioning. Survey &  Civil folk use FT as their unit, and decimal feet.  (Then there's the difference between Internationaql Ft and US Survey Ft just to make it more fun)

3. Architect generally use 3/32" in for normal text -- civil use 0.1 units

4. Generally, construction drawings are either ArchD (24"x36") or AnsiD ("22"x34"), although larger and smaller are both in use.

[conormccartney3897]

I work for a Civil & Structural Engineering firm, heres what we do:

1. As we work around the world, we use what is dicatated by the client. Generally Imperial of US jobs, metric for teh rest of world.

2. Feet and inches for Structural, Decimal feet (two decimal places) for Civil.

3. 1/8" (3.175mm) 3/16" (4.762mm) and 1/4" (6.35mm) but this is more a company standard then anything else.

4. Common size is difficult as we do anything from 11x17's to 36x48 (A0) and sometimes bigger (36x50+ is not unheard of), but most often i would say 30"x42".

[JDMather]

Most USA manufacturing field now use metric (mm), but still a lot of inch around.

[steve216586]

Tapes, Calipers and Micrometers have both metric and imperial unit output. But imperial is used most widely in the US because it is a unit most workers are comfortable with and easily understand. Much of the use of metric units in the US is when manufactured products from foreign fabricators are used in a US assembled product. Metric is also widely used for products to be shipped to foreign destinations.

[dukesys]

Hello,

Thanks to all for your comments and help

Regards

Martin Duke.