Check wood shear wall drawings by confirming every wall on the shear wall plan exists on the architectural plans at the same length, with no unaccounted door or window inside it. Then follow each wall down: a footing or grade beam under it, anchor bolts and hold-downs sized and located on the foundation plan, one sheathing and nailing schedule, and connectors named once. Finish with the diaphragm nailing zones and the design data.
Start with what the architectural plans build
Lay the shear wall plan over the architectural floor plans. Every shear wall must be a real wall at the same place and length, and any door or window inside it must be accounted for. A wall noted at full length that contains a door gives the lateral design credit for sheathing that is not there.
In the two-story house roof load and shear wall review, three interior shear walls were noted at their full length, and each held a door, with no detail for sheathing, hold-downs or straps at the openings.
Twelve questions for shear wall drawings
Work through the set in this order. The CSV has columns for the location, the source references, the reviewer, the status, the decision and the closure evidence. It contains no design values; those come from the engineer’s calculations and the adopted code and standards, such as the AWC SDPWS.
| Review area | Open these sources together | Question to resolve |
|---|---|---|
| Shear wall plan against the architectural plans | Shear wall plan, architectural floor plans, door and window schedules | Does every shear wall on the structural plan exist on the architectural plans at the same location and length? |
| Openings inside a shear wall | Shear wall plan and schedule, door and window schedules, elevations | Where a door or window falls inside a noted shear wall, is the wall shown as sheathed segments with hold-downs at each end, or detailed as a wall designed around the opening? |
| Foundation under every shear wall | Foundation plan, shear wall plan, slab and beam details | Does every shear wall, including interior walls, stand on a footing or grade beam the foundation plan shows, rather than on an unthickened slab? |
| Anchor bolts and sill plates | Foundation details, shear wall schedule, anchor bolt notes | Are anchor bolt size, spacing and embedment given for each wall type and each foundation condition it sits on? |
| Hold-downs and their anchors | Shear wall plan, hold-down schedule and details, foundation plan | Is each hold-down named, with its anchor rod size, embedment and edge distance detailed and located on the foundation plan before the pour? |
| Sheathing and nailing schedule | Shear wall schedule, general notes, plan tags | Do the schedule, the notes and the plan tags give one sheathing grade, thickness and nailing for each wall type? |
| Upper-floor walls over lower walls | Upper and lower shear wall plans, framing plans, beam and post schedule | Do upper shear walls stack over lower walls or over beams and posts designed to carry their overturning forces? |
| Collectors, straps and drag struts | Framing plans, strap details, top plate notes | Where a wall line is broken or offset, are the collectors, straps or top plate splices that carry the force to the wall shown? |
| Roof and floor diaphragm nailing | Roof and floor sheathing legends, wind zone diagrams, design notes | Does the sheathing fastening increase in the zones the design notes give the highest uplift and edge forces, not decrease? |
| Connectors named once | Shear wall plans, roof framing plan, connector schedule, typical details | Is one connector model named for each condition across every sheet, rather than a list of options with no rule for choosing? |
| Demolition and existing walls | Demolition plan, existing conditions, shear wall plan | For alterations, are existing walls that become shear walls kept on the demolition plan and opened for new sheathing and hold-downs? |
| Design data on the drawings | Structural design notes, wind and seismic data, calculations | Do the notes give the wind and seismic design data the lateral design used, in the terms the building department asks for? |
Mark a row not applicable only after recording why. A short wall with no hold-downs still needs its anchors and foundation checked.
Follow each wall into the foundation
Interior shear walls are the ones most often left without a foundation. On a slab-on-grade house, check that each interior shear wall stands on a thickened slab or grade beam the foundation plan draws, and that the anchor bolt detail covers that condition, not just the perimeter beam. In the same review, an interior shear wall stood about a foot off the nearest interior grade beam, on the thin slab, with only a perimeter anchor bolt detail in the set. The hold-down at its end was a product picture with no anchor rod size, embedment or location on the foundation plan, and those anchors have to be set before the pour.
Check the nailing zones and connectors
Roof and floor sheathing legends often vary fastening by wind zone. Read the legend against the design notes: fastening should tighten where the uplift is higher, not loosen. The two-story house review found one roof zone nailed more loosely than the field although its design uplift was the highest. Then check that each connection condition names one connector across every sheet. For alterations, see the bearing wall removal checklist, where replacement shear walls must also appear on the demolition plan.
Where Groundbook fits
Groundbook compares the shear wall plans, schedules, foundation plan, details, architectural plans and calculations you upload, with any codes and standards you supply as references, and returns potential conflicts with links to each source, such as a shear wall noted at full length on the structural plan and interrupted by a door on the architectural plan. It does not design shear walls, check capacity or decide code compliance. Each finding is a question for the engineer of record. See cross-discipline coordination review for the workflow, and the structural drawing checklist for the other structural sheets.