Millimetres rather than inches. Setbacks, site coverage and garage rules that match the codes you are actually building under. Finishes from Australian suppliers with real SKUs. And a DXF your draftsperson can open.
Free while in beta · no card · needs a laptop or desktop
It is an easy claim to make and a boring one to actually do, so here is the list.
These are the widths and areas Draftie measures your rooms against, whether you drew them or scanned them in, one table, applied the same way to both.
They come in three tiers, and the distinction matters. Some are code: the NCC and the Livable Housing Design Standard bind, and a plan that misses them does not get built as drawn. Some are deemed-to-satisfy: Queensland Development Code acceptable solutions, which a council overrides routinely, so treat them as a starting envelope. And some are convention: what an Australian project home actually draws, which is not enforceable but is the difference between a plan that reads as designed and one that reads as packed.
A worked example, because the derivation is the useful part: a bedroom is 2,700mm wide because a queen bed is 1,530mm and you want 600mm to walk past it on each side. That is why the number is what it is, and it is also why a 2,700mm bedroom with a robe on a side wall behaves like a 2,100mm one.
| Room | Min width (mm) | Min area (m²) |
|---|---|---|
| Bedroom | 2700 | 8.0 |
| Bathroom | 1800 | 3.5 |
| Ensuite | 1500 | 3.0 |
| Powder room / WC | 900 | 1.7 |
| Laundry | 1500 | 2.7 |
| Kitchen | 2400 | 8.0 |
| Living | 3300 | 14.0 |
| Dining | 2700 | 9.0 |
| Study | 2100 | 5.5 |
| Walk-in robe | 1500 | 3.0 |
| Pantry | 900 | 1.5 |
| Garage (single) | 3600 | 21.6 |
Rooms are the part people check. Corridors are the part that fails.
Draftie treats 1,000mm as the minimum usable corridor width, which is also what the Livable Housing Design Standard requires of an entry-level corridor serving the required doorways: the two happen to agree. Below that a hallway is not usable; 1,200mm is what it should be if there is room for it.
Doors are measured as clear width rather than leaf width, because that is how the standard is written. An 820mm leaf gives about 760mm clear once you account for the stop, the hardware and the thickness of the open leaf. That 50mm is the difference between a door that complies and one that measures as though it does.
And circulation above about 16% of the floor area is flagged as dead space. That is not a code rule, it is an efficiency one: a plan spending a fifth of its floor on hallway is a plan paying for area nobody occupies.
Every large floor plan platform is built for a global market, which means it is built for none in particular. They will happily let you draw a 2,100mm-wide bedroom, put a garage two metres from the street, and specify a beautiful floor tile that is not rated for a wet area.
None of those are drawing mistakes. They are compliance mistakes, and you find out about them from a building surveyor or a builder, at the point where fixing them is expensive. Encoding the rules into the drawing tool is the difference between a plan that looks right and a plan that is not going to be sent back.
Draftie produces concept plans, not construction documents. It will not do your energy rating, your structural design, or your soil classification, and passing its checks is not a compliance certificate. The QDC rules it applies are Queensland’s; if you are building in another state the code checks still apply but the deemed-to-satisfy envelope may not, and your own council’s planning scheme overrides both.
What it does is get you to a properly measured, properly specified concept that a builder can price and a draftsperson can document from, and the DXF export means they start from your geometry rather than redrawing it. If you are not sure who you need, the guide on architects, building designers and draftspeople is a good place to start.
Test a layout against your actual block and its setbacks before you commit to a builder’s standard plan or pay for a custom one.
Scan the existing plan, try the change, and see immediately whether the room you have created is still above its minimum width.
A concept you can price from, with a flooring schedule attached and the obvious compliance problems already surfaced.
It checks against the NCC and the Queensland Development Code, and it applies the setbacks you enter for your block. It does not hold every local planning scheme, so check your own overlays and setback requirements with your council: the checks catch the obvious, they do not certify anything.
Yes, with one caveat. The NCC applies nationally, so the room, circulation and door checks hold wherever you are. The QDC-derived numbers are Queensland acceptable solutions and are best read as a sensible starting envelope elsewhere. Your own council overrides both regardless of which state you are in.
Throughout, and to 1mm precision. It is the unit residential drawings are dimensioned in here, and mixing units is how a wall ends up 100mm out.
Yes, 2,585 materials from five Australian manufacturers, with real SKUs, plank and tile sizes, slip ratings and wet-area flags. The flooring ones come out on the schedule your builder prices from.
They can price from the 1:100 PDF with its flooring schedule, and your draftsperson can open the DXF. It is a concept plan: the drawing you take to someone, not the drawing you build from.
Yes, each floor is its own plan, drawn or scanned, and you switch between them in the editor.
It is free while Draftie is in beta, with no card required. See pricing for how that will change.
Yes, at least a 900px-wide screen and a mouse. The canvas needs both, and we would rather say so up front than have you discover it after signing up.
Enter your lot dimensions and setbacks and watch a compliant footprint appear inside them.
Start a plan, freeDraftie produces concept plans, not construction documents, and its plan checks are advisory rather than a compliance certificate. Product specifications change, confirm current details with the manufacturer before relying on them.