diff --git a/BUILDING.md b/BUILDING.md
index e408402a766..81edb68e435 100644
--- a/BUILDING.md
+++ b/BUILDING.md
@@ -103,6 +103,9 @@ repository at the latest stable version.
 In the C++ world, there's no "standard" build system that would work for in all supported use cases and on all supported platforms.
 Therefore, gRPC supports several major build systems, which should satisfy most users.
 
+Note that this section only covers the build of gRPC itself, not the installation. See the [How to use](https://github.com/grpc/grpc/tree/master/src/cpp#to-start-using-grpc-c) instructions
+for guidance on how to add gRPC as a dependency to a C++ application (there are several ways and system wide installation is often not the best choice).
+
 ## make (on UNIX systems)
 
 From the grpc repository root