Save Money On Your Custom Home Architectural Plans

You've bought that piece of property that you want to build your dream home on, now what do you do?

You need a set of proper plans if you want to build that dream home, that means that you will need someone with the proper credentials to create them for you. In Ontario the person that draws your house plans has to have a BCIN number for the building department to even look at the plans for permitting.

Remember something, having drawings created costs money, the more time that an Architect or Architectural technologist takes to draw your new home the more money they will charge you for the completed set of plans.

There are several different ways that these professionals charge for their time, a lot of them will charge per hour and some will charge per job, one thing that they all will do will be to ascertain the amount of time they think they will have to block off for you as a client.

How you ask do they ascertain how much time they will need to block off for you? Well when they meet you if you have no clue what you want or when you want to start or anything else then they are going to have to spend a lot of time leading you through every step.

To help limit he amount of money you will have to spend on your plans here are some helpful tips to do before you ever sit down with your Architect:

• Drive around the neighborhood that you are going to build in and get a feel for the other houses. This will help you understand how everyone else is building, whether they are building a walkout basement, raised bungalow, stucco, stone or other design ideals that fit the area.
• From driving around take pictures of houses that you like. 
• Surf the internet for anything you like, not just houses but front entrances, kitchens, dining rooms, great rooms, bathrooms, decks, outdoor space. Every picture helps with the design, the more detail you can give them the better they will be able to create your vision of a dream home.
• Make lists. You need to tell your designer how many bathrooms you want, how many bedrooms you want, how many stories you want, ect.
• You must come up with a budget number for the overall project. A good architect can design you an entire house that will fall into your budget. There is a rough square footage cost for a custom home, using this the Architect can design the appropriate size of home. If your budget is unobtainable then they will be able to tell you that you need to adjust it.
• When you visit your vacant piece of property you need to decide where you want the house to be orientated, the positioning of the home on the property will greatly affect the design and layout of the home. 
• You need to find out if you need septic and well or if there are services in the area.

Whomever you hire whether its an architect or an architectural technologist you need to come into the process with an open mind on what you want your home to look like and how the design will end up. Remember that you are hiring them for a reason and they are professionals that do this all the time, You don't have to allow them to give you what they think you want, but you also should not reject everything they say because it wasn't in your original thoughts about the house.

As long as the relationship between you and the professional you hire goes well then the final product will not only be what you want but it will also be something that stands the test of time, holds its value going forward for resale and is something that you and your family will be happy in for a longtime.

Rob Abbott

Village Builders Inc.   

Do I Require Architectural or Engineering Plans To Get A Quote From A Home Builder?

Q:

Do I need a proper set of architectural or engineering drawings to get a quote from a home builder?

A:

Yes and No. The answer is not a simple one.

A well established and organized Custom Home Builder will have a proper system that they use to quote new homes. It's usually a computerized system that they can punch numbers into and then adjust at the end with anything that is special or different then the typical build.

This means that if you have created the drawings yourself and have given the builder as much information pertaining to the interior and exterior finishes as you possibly can then the builder should be able to work up a quote for you. The quote wouldn't be set in stone but it would be a very close estimate to what the actual number would be. The reason that the quote wouldn't be a fixed price is because you created the drawings yourself, there could be flaws in the drawings that the municipality might flag when you apply for a permit or the builder might discover when he is actually building the home that would have to be fixed or adjusted at an additional cost. Everything looks a little different once it's in the real world from what has been drawn on a flat piece of paper.

If the home is a complicated home that has special items in it that will require engineering then the builder will have trouble giving you an accurate quote. There are certain things that can add to the cost of a home and one of them is the engineering of the structure or structures around the home.

For example: If your home is going to have retaining walls or a deeper basement and the concrete walls of the home are going to be essentially used to hold back a large amount of ground then the concrete walls require engineering, this engineering could make the concrete walls significantly more expensive because of the thickness and the amount of re-bar that is to be placed in them.

Other parts of the home like the roof; if they are drawn incorrectly might not be structurally sound and will require engineering to prevent failure when they are under a snow load. This type of engineering could change the entire look, feel and cost of a roof for the you. When you start changing roof lines and roof pitches you can start to affect the inside of the home, ceilings can have height changes along with window placements and it can also affect your ability to have cathedral ceilings.

Basically if your planning on building a simple house then you might be able to get away with simple drawings, but if you are planning to build something unique, large or complicated then you are going to have to spend some money on a proper set of plans. These plans won't be a waste of money, they will probably save you more money in the long run by eliminating a lot of the unknown costs that spring up during building then the actual cost of the drawings.

Rob Abbott
Village Builders Inc.

Make sure you use the proper set of plans to build your custom home

You’ve been working with an architect and a general contractor to create the perfect custom home for you that can be built in your budget, you’ve had multiple plans drawn and finally settled on a final design and budget. There’s only one more thing that needs to be done, settle on the correct plan.

It might sound like an obvious statement that you need to use the proper drawings but it’s not as obvious as you might think.

When architects create new drawings there might be subtle differences but those subtle differences can make a big difference. In the design process there are multiple sets of plans that are drawn one or two weeks apart you can end up with drastic differences to certain things in the home such as windows that are added or omitted or roof lines that have been changed slightly that the laymen might not notice when glancing at the plans.

When a general contractor budgets a custom home for a client they send out the most current drawings out to their sub-trades to price. A sub-trade then keeps those plans that they have priced from encase they get the chance to do the work they have something to reference. When you get multiple drawings for a house a busy sub-trade that arrives months after they originally priced it can easily end up working off the wrong set of plans.

The best way to avoid this is for the architect, the general contractor and the homeowner to agree on the date of the plans that they are going to use to construct the home. Any other plans that people have should be thrown away or destroyed once the general contractor has sent out an email to all the relevant sub contractors informing them of the appropriate date on the plans that they will be using.
This will insure that the wrong plans will not be used when the sub-trades come to work onsite.

Even with emailing everyone involved the general contractor will have to take the time to meet with the sub-trades onsite to ensure that they are using the proper set of plans.

A homeowner that has hired the right general contractor should not have to worry about this because a well organized general should have strict rules when sub-trades are working onsite about the plans that are being used by the sub contractors.

If your given the option to pay a little more to have an onsite site super at all times by your general contractor you should take it, this is the best way to guarantee that the home is built the way that you want it with little to no mistakes that could cost you money in a time and material contract.

Rob Abbott
Village Builders Inc.

I'm having house plans drawn do I need cross sections?

Q:

I’m having plans drawn up by an architect, he has given me all the exterior views and the overheads of the house for every floor. The plans look great, is there anything else that I should be asking him to render?

 A:

What you have now is the basic package that every architect and draftsmen give you. Those are the drawings that you will need to get a building permit. You could even have contractors give you prices on those drawings, there is one problem, if you don’t have any sectional renderings that cut right through the middle of the house then the contractors who price it will not be able to see all the details in the interior structural framing.

It is extremely important that you ask for cross-sections going both ways through the house, this will make the price you get quoted (from the contractors) to be more accurate and there will be less questions from the contractor you select later.

Chances are if you don’t get cross-sections right away you will end up getting them later when the house is in the middle of being constructed, the contractor will be having trouble figuring out where all the structural supports go and what the interior ceiling heights are suppose to be because there is little to no detail in the plans without cross-sections.

The reason that the architect doesn’t just give you the cross-sections in the first place is because it is an extra, in today’s construction world even architects are feeling the pressure of bringing in more and more work with less people looking to build homes. Architects used  to give you a full set of detailed drawings but the overall price was much higher, today’s construction market is much tighter and more competitive so they give you the basic package and then upgrade you from there.

When it comes to architect drawings you can never have too much information, yes it will cost you more money but its money that you will need to spend anyways so that the contractor who builds your home will know all the details before they start.

Remember the more information that your architect gives you the easier it will be for your contractor to build your dream home, the easier it is to build the faster your contractor can build it and in construction time is money.

Rob Abbott
Village Builders Inc.