Meaning of abbreviations IL & CL

My first thought for CL was centre line but even a "dumb American" would recognize it.

Please give more clues about the purpose of the plans.

What about Critical Level.

Buddy,

CL means Cetre Line

IL means Invert Level

To me, this plan sounds like a surveyor's topographical plan to be used by the civil engineer to design something. As the other commenter mentioned, until we learn more about this plan, it is impossible to guess with certainty.

Does the plan have a title? If so, this will serve as a clue if you can share this with us.

Yes it is cover level and invert level. You are looking at a foul water (FW) and rainwater (RW) sewer plan are you not?

Normally the measurements are in metres above OSD Ordnance Survey Data levels. If they are in mm then they would be with respect to the invert level of the nearest mains sewer connection point or a site datum which has been defined.

Yes, as you term it these are foul and rainwater sewer drawings (over here we call it sanitary and storm sewer). I appreciate your confirmation, and give you a GA vote.

What the hell is "foul water"? Wordwide many call this "sewer". What the hell is "rainwater"? Many worldwide call this "storm". What the hell is "Ordnance (spell check) Survey Data"?

What is the country of origin of this plan? I'm guessing not US since metric units are referenced.

CR4 posters should not assume all readers are from the same country that original poster is from. I get the impression that many from India are not aware that the CR4 community extends beyond their borders.

This is rich from someone who doesn't have their location with their Avatar...

WTF are you man?

Del

Born in the USA man, cat or WEverTF you are! My Avatar clearly shows me to be a New England Patriot!

By the way metric is the standard in US for science, and is used by many agencies, one particular one that influences all the other state agencies is CalTrans. Since all the other states use CalTrans methods, or reference them, as their basis for their own standards, you should expect that after a reasonable trial period for California to work the older engineers, who are inflexible to learn new content, out of the system and get it fully accepted, your state will be converting (even some of those quaint northerneastern states). If you find metric units problematic, you could start studying now so you can retain a little bit of the new system for the conversion from the english system to the metric system in about 5 to 10 years or so, depending upon the level of advancement of the engineering standards in your state. Expect a much longer delay in Water resources and Geotechnical engineering fields, these groups are very resistant to transitioning (and Water Resources Engineers actually prefer using like 5 different units that are not so easily converted to measure like water flow or storage capacity, it keeps people outside the industry confused).

Lighten up a little!

Excellent guess that the plans are not US since I identified myself as a "Dumb American" and mentioned the metric units. Since I said they were from the other side of the ocen, that also was a subtle clue.

I didn't think I needed to give the country of the plans, and since I got an educated answer from someone quick enough to expand on my question and give a reasonable response I think I provided sufficient information.

Be careful when you loosely use the term sewer, since there are several types of sewer and dangerous things happen without careful design. I have worked with Sanitary (Foul Water), Storm (Rainwater), Industrial waste, cyanide sewer, and chromic acid sewer. I could identify with omw7's reply as sounding correct because of brief but informative answer.

A little humor and imagination helps alot and goes a long way on this forum. Get some and use it. This is an international site, and not everybody writes good American like I do.

Hello eriew,

'Ordnance' is from Ordnance Survey, the Official Geographical Survey of Britain.

And, though I have yet to do a search I think it may relate to stores of 'Ordnance' (Arms for the Military etc) and, may be the distance those Arms could be fired and the 'High-Points of land the Arms could possibly be fired from, to reach other critical 'Ordnance areas?

'Foul Water' is 'dirty' water that collects in natural hollows and is not rain water or any other fresh water. It also refers to water from the bath, hand basin, shower, washing machine, dishwasher, tumble dryer etc, before it runs into the sewer pipe. After it has run into the sewer pipe it is sewer water. Sewer water is just that, water from Toilets that run in usually salt-glazed pipes and brick and concrete ducts several metres wide underground. Rain water refers to the run-off of rain water and water from flooded fields etc. All this eventually goes into a central huge sewer pipe to a treatment works because it all needs to be de-contaminated.

Sorry for any 'obvious' comments in the definitions but just trying to explain fully. I do not infer any stupidity in any way OK?

jfmfit

Hi Reid

Your question was pure discrimination

I mean, you put a question and answer it yourselves and expect CR4 members without knowledge of s-s-sh-sewer to guess the application and country without the slightest clue.

I think the least you can do now is to let us guess the country. Maybe you can drop a clue or two by Wednesday.

My guess goes to Zimbabwe. Plenty of foul play and problems.

I guess the $ is worth about Z$ 350,000,000. (calculated via the SA Rand)

They don't do plans there but a note at the back of a cigarette box will quickly escalate to a plan.

Yes it was, but I'm not sure who the intended target was. I am also somewhat bigoted, racist, and a troglodyte, which I try to keep somewhat under control. I also try to be careful to enjoy life which in my book means being able to laugh at myself and my occasional(frequent?) mistakes and idiosyncrasies.

When an American says the other side of the pond, it does leave a large area of practice. However since 99.94% of the rest of the world uses SI measurement, I thought that was specific enough. Project is actually in Qatar, near Doha. At least your guess was in the right hemisphere. I don't know the $ value, but it is a new city so I would guess a lot.

I did not know the answer, but made a semi-educated guess and asked for confirmation. I did get my guess confirmed (even a blind pig occasionally finds an acorn), and thanked the contributor. A second respondent also confirmed part of my guess. Based on the content of the sewer plans, I believe cover level is the better choice.

It's interesting you mention Zimbabwe in your post, I'm still waiting for my share of the Z$ 350,000,000 that was promised in an email I got several years back(tongue firmly in cheek, but I can't hold the laugh much longer). I have been known to do plans on the inside of a dry cereal box.

End of rant, now have a nice day!

Ried

Hi Ried

Don't claim your "prize" now. You will be asked to pay banking fees, postage, bribes etc. amounting to Z$ 3,500,000,000,

I have a lunch slip here somewhere for 23 March 2008, A soft drink and a dinner for slightly more than Z$ 1,000,000,000.00

Zim removed some zeros not so long ago.

This is all very strange.

A question is asked, it is answered to the entire satisfaction of the questioner and yet many on the CR4 forum are upset that they cannot understand the answer.

In many replies to questions on the forum, reference is simply made to Wikipedia or Google. I suggest that this is something we can all do if we come across terms that we do not understand immediately.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordnance_Survey

So to recap:

A poster asks a question about a plan on his desk having to do with some abbreviations which are not obvious to him in USA. He states that the plan comes from another country, but does not state which one. CR4 is asked to help him solve this riddle.

Posters ask for more information. What type of plan? The country of origin? Etc.

Next in sequence, a poster responds with what he feels is the obvious answer. How is it possible not to know what IL means on a plan of some sort from somewhere?

Later on, someone familiar with this plan or location solves the riddle. I wonder, is it possible that he was prompted to reply? Interesting.

More back and forth and some name calling.

Finally, the statement that a simple appeal to Wiki or Goggle would easily have confirmed these rather obvious standards. Obvious to those with the plan on their desk, or obvious to the CR4 community?

This line of reasoning is pure nonsense. I may try Goggle or Wiki to see if I get a hit on the now named country, but I certainly would not expect Goggle to return a favorable result on "IL". This abbreviation simply has not yet gained the status of an internationally known acronym. Accept this fact and move on.

PS

The argument will be even more difficult in the case of "CL" as this one clearly is accepted throughout the civil engineering/survey world as "center-line".

You or the plan maker are simply trying to define new or unusual terms to replace world-standard terms. What's wrong with Rim? Invert (Inv.)?

The purpose of a <...drawing...> is to communicate. If something on the drawing conveys no meaning to its recipient, then effective communication has not taken place.

The originator of the drawing should be stated thereon and it is to that source that this sort of question needs to be addressed. The telephone is a great piece of equipment to tackle it and there has never been so many on the planet. It is a rule-of-thumb that one can contact anyone on the planet by asking the correct questions in no more than six telephone calls.