Design & Drawings

A drawing set does three jobs. It gets you a permit, it tells the trades what to build, and it settles arguments later about what was agreed. A weak set fails at all three.

We produce full architectural, mechanical, plumbing and electrical drawings for restaurants, cafés, bakeries, grocery stores and food production facilities — the complete package a municipality needs for plan review and a contractor needs to price accurately.

Why the mechanical sheet is the one that matters

In a food space, the kitchen exhaust drives more of the budget and more of the review than anything else on the page.

A Type 1 hood over a cooking line requires exhaust, tempered make-up air, fire suppression, and a path to the roof that the building has to physically accommodate. Get the make-up air wrong and the space runs negative — doors pull shut, the dining room is cold in February, and the hood does not capture properly. That is not a snagging item. It is a rebuild.

We size the hood to the equipment line that is actually being ordered, not a generic assumption, which is why we insist on locking the equipment package before the mechanical sheet is finalized.

Drawn once, coordinated across every trade

The failure mode we see most in sets drawn elsewhere is trades that disagree with each other. The plumbing sheet puts a floor drain where the equipment plan puts a leg. The electrical sheet feeds a 208V unit that shipped as 240V. The architectural sheet shows a door swing that blocks the hand sink the health unit requires.

Every one of those gets caught on site, at the worst possible moment, at the highest possible cost. We coordinate the sheets against each other and against the real equipment cut sheets before anything is submitted.

Compliance designed in from the start

Barrier-free washroom clearances, hand sink placement and count, cleanable surfaces, mop sink location, separation of raw and ready-to-eat prep — these are health unit and Building Code requirements that are cheap to design in and expensive to retrofit.

We build them into the first layout rather than reacting to a plan review comment eight weeks later.

What you receive

A permit submission set — architectural, mechanical, plumbing and electrical sheets issued together at one revision number, in PDF and DWG

Sealed sheets from the licensed engineers retained on the project wherever the municipality requires a stamped drawing

An equipment schedule keyed to the plan: every unit numbered with model, footprint, clearances, service connections and CSA or NSF listing

A hood and make-up air calculation sheet showing exhaust volume, replacement air and the appliance duty each figure was based on

A grease interceptor sizing calculation in the form a plan examiner will accept, with the fixture counts and drain runs it was derived from

A health unit plan review package — layout, finish schedule, sink count and placement, in the format your public health unit accepts

What we need from you

The signed lease or offer, plus whatever the landlord holds — base building drawings, as-builts, tenant design criteria — and access to the unit for measurement

Your menu, service model and expected covers, in enough detail to size prep space, refrigeration, warewashing and seating

A locked equipment list, or written authority for us to specify it. The mechanical and electrical sheets cannot be finished against a moving package

One person with authority to approve each drawing revision. Approvals routed through three partners are the most common reason a set sits

Not included

Structural, sprinkler and fire alarm engineering. Where a project needs them, they are produced and sealed by the licensed engineers retained for those disciplines and coordinated into our set, not drawn by us

Filing the application and working the file through the plan examiner. That runs under Permits & Compliance, and municipal fees are paid by the owner directly

Redesigns after the set is issued for permit. Layout changes at that point are re-drawn as a revision and restart the municipality's review clock

Questions about this service

I already have drawings from another designer. Can you use them?

Usually in part. We review the set against your equipment list, the Ontario Building Code and the local health unit's requirements, then tell you what stands and what has to be redrawn. Floor plans and elevations often survive. Mechanical and plumbing sheets rarely do, because they were drawn before the equipment was chosen. You get the review findings in writing before any redraw work begins.

Who seals the drawings?

NHFC prepares and coordinates the set. Where a municipality requires a sealed sheet — commonly structural work, and mechanical on larger systems — it is sealed by the licensed engineer retained for that discipline on your project. We define their scope, hand them a coordinated background to work from, and carry their sheets into the submission at the same revision as everything else. Requirements vary by municipality and by building.

Do I own the files, and can contractors bid straight from them?

Yes to both. You receive the issued set in PDF and DWG. It is drawn as a bid document: dimensioned plans, a finish schedule, and an equipment schedule that numbers every unit with its service connections and clearances. Three contractors pricing that set are pricing the same scope, so the numbers are comparable. Nothing in the set ties you to one trade or one supplier.