What Is a Plan Check Comment?

A comment that can be answered names the sheet, the code section, and the problem. 'Egress width' with no stair and no section is hard to close. Teams should ask the examiner to clarify a comment that cannot be located, and they should do it in the response log so the request is on the record.

Some comments are completeness items: calculations not sealed, a form not uploaded, a sheet missing from the index. Those close by providing the document. Others require a design change. Those close only when the clouded revision matches the response.

Repeat the comment number. State the action in one line: revised detail 5/A-501, clarified by note 3, or exception requested under the cited section. Point at the sheet and the delta. Attach the revised PDF the portal asked for, with the same revision number in the title block.

Do not answer a code comment with a product cut. The examiner is checking the documents that will be permitted. A shop drawing that does not exist yet cannot clear a comment on the permit set unless the city has agreed to a deferred submittal.

On backcheck the examiner reads the response against the open items. A clean item gets marked resolved. An item whose revision created a new conflict, such as a wider door that now swings into a rated corridor, can generate a new number.

Owners who track only the first letter underestimate the work. The log that matters is the one that shows every number, the date of the response, and the date it was cleared. That log is also what a lender asks for when the permit is on the critical path.

Architectural, structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and energy comments land on different consultants. The architect of record usually assembles one response. A structural comment answered by the architect, without the engineer, is a stamp problem as well as a code problem.

Split the letter by discipline on day one. Waiting until the cycle deadline to discover that the energy modeler never saw comment 22 is how resubmittals go out incomplete.

Approved conditions and leftover deferred items show up in the field as inspection holds. The superintendent needs the cleared set, not the first issue. A comment that was 'resolved by note' still has to be on the sheet the installer is holding.

If construction starts on a partial permit, write down which comments remain and which inspections they block. A foundation-only release does not clear the egress comments that govern the upper floors.