Hardware Schedules and Submittals: How a Division 8 Package Works
, by United Doors and Locks, 4 min reading time
Hardware sets, door numbering, the submittal review cycle and keying meetings — how a Division 8 package actually moves from specification to the jobsite.
On a commercial project, the hardware schedule is the document that decides whether the openings work. It is written by the hardware consultant or the supplier, reviewed by the architect, and then used by the installer as the instruction sheet. If you have been handed one and it looks like a wall of abbreviations, this is how to read it.
What a hardware schedule is
A hardware schedule lists every door on the project and states exactly what hardware goes on it. It is organised into hardware sets — numbered groups of items that repeat across openings that behave the same way.
A classroom door, a stair door and a mechanical room door each get their own set. Every door in the building that behaves like that classroom door then simply references the same set number. On a large project you might have two hundred openings and thirty sets.
A typical set looks something like this: quantity, item, product number, finish, manufacturer. Three hinges, one lockset, one closer, one wall stop, one set of gasketing, and so on down the opening.
Where the schedule comes from
The architect issues Division 8 of the specification along with a door schedule showing each opening's number, size, material, rating and hand. The hardware supplier or consultant then takes that off and writes the hardware schedule against it.
The door numbering matters. Every opening carries a unique mark — often the room number it serves — and that mark follows the opening through the schedule, the submittal, the shipping labels and the installation. When someone on site says "122A is wrong," that is what they are referring to.
The submittal process
The schedule does not go straight to the factory. It goes through submittals, which is the review cycle that confirms what is being ordered matches what was specified.
1. Supplier prepares the submittal. This is the hardware schedule plus manufacturer cut sheets for every item, keying information, and often shop drawings for frames and any electrified openings.
2. Contractor reviews and forwards. The general contractor checks it for completeness and passes it to the architect.
3. Architect reviews. The submittal comes back marked. "Approved" or "No Exceptions Taken" means order it. "Approved as Noted" means order it with the marked corrections. "Revise and Resubmit" means fix it and go around again.
4. Release to manufacture. Only after approval does anything get built. Custom frames and factory-prepped doors have real lead times, so a submittal cycle that goes around twice can move a delivery date by weeks.
Keying
Keying is scheduled separately and usually later, in a keying meeting between the owner, the supplier and sometimes the locksmith. The output is a keying schedule that says which key opens which door, what the master key structure is, and how many keys of each type to cut.
Get this in the calendar early. Keying is frequently the thing that holds up an otherwise finished opening, because cylinders cannot be pinned until someone decides who is allowed in where.
Reading the abbreviations
Schedules are dense because they are written for people who read them daily. The most common conventions:
- Finish — given as a BHMA or US code. 626 (US26D) is satin chrome, 630 is satin stainless, 613 (US10B) is oil-rubbed bronze.
- Handing — LH, RH, LHR, RHR.
- Function — the lock's behaviour: passage, privacy, office, storeroom, classroom.
- Grade — ANSI/BHMA Grade 1, 2 or 3, which sets the cycle and strength testing the product has passed.
- Prep — what has been machined into the door or frame: 161 for a cylindrical lock bore, 86 for a mortise lock pocket.
Where projects go wrong
Three failures account for most of the trouble. Handing errors, where a door arrives prepped for the wrong hand and cannot be corrected on site. Missing openings, where a door on the plan never made it into a hardware set and shows up with nothing to hang it on. And fire rating mismatches, where a specified item is not listed for the rating the opening carries, which is the one that fails inspection rather than just costing time.
All three are caught by reading the schedule against the door schedule before the submittal goes out.
Send us the drawings
We prepare hardware schedules and submittal packages for commercial projects across Texas. Send the architectural drawings, the door schedule and the Division 8 specification and we will do the takeoff and write the sets.
Email estimates@uniteddoorsandlocks.com or call 346-777-3031.