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.