We’re planning to build a new house hopefully (!) in the next couple of years, so we’ve been wading through all the books and magazines and websites of houseplans, with growing dismay and disappointment, sadly.
Most houseplans we’ve found go for style over substance, size over clever design (thanks for the inspirations otherwise, Sarah Susanka!).
We did find one that fits all our criteria (listed in a book and online), so I emailed the company, as directed, with some questions….three months ago….still awaiting a reply….
Most frustrating! Is this normal? Anyone else bought houseplans like this? On the whole the websites are great – easy to use, etc, but what’s the use of a cleverly designed website if there’s poor – or no – follow-up to questions, one wonders?
alibris
Replies
Don't be frustrated. Be thankful that you found out what a bunch of dough heads they are before you sent them money.
Then click on the Breaktime button, second from the left in the second row of buttons above. Click on the Start Reading button or on one of the topics to get to the message reading window. Click on the Advanced Search button near the top of the index frame on the left. Enter canned plans without any quotes in the search box and click Search. I usually get search results in about six seconds. If the results still haven't appeared in thirty seconds, it's probably stuck and you need to click Search again. Keep in mind that most of these are from the builder's point of view, which may not be identical to the homeowner's point of view.
Instead of spending money building features shown in stock plans that you don't want anyway, how about hiring an architect? That way your building will be just what you want.
The standard fee for full service, which includes construction oversight, is 10% of the estimated construction cost for the structure, that is, without the land and landscaping. That may be money well spent if stock plans aren't exciting you.
I agree with you on the poor quality of stock plans. They tend to throw in quirky little rooms that are unfurnishable, slap cutesy little bumpouts on which drive up the cost, and have the windows and room orientations all wrong for the direction of sunlight, wind, and topography. You have to weigh the alternatives of building a (probably slightly smaller) home that fits you like a glove, vs. a PayLess plastic shoe from China that's too large for your feet. Sorry, the metaphor is poor!
>> The standard fee for full service ... is 10% of the estimated construction cost ...
I would never sign a contract like that. It's a built in conflict of interest.
>> ... a ... home that fits you like a glove, vs. a PayLess plastic shoe ...
You left out the third and IMO most likely outcome. You pay for the glove and get the platic shoe.
That's how it's generally done in the profession, so it would be difficult not to contract that way if you wanted an architect. An alternative is pay by the hour, which is sometimes done, but is more open ended.
I don't believe it's the conflict of interest it may first appear to be. The architect will be designing to a budget, so the construction cost, and hence the architect's fee, will be known up front. If the actual project comes in over budget after it's built, the owner still owes the contractors, of course, but the architect's fee does not increase.
The possibility of paying for a kid glove and getting a plastic shoe is very unlikely if the right people are hired. In nearly every case when it happens, the wrong people were hired to do the job.
>> That's how it's generally done in the profession ...
Yeah, I know. That's one reason I'm suspicious of the profession.
>> ... it would be difficult not to contract that way if you wanted an architect.
Oh, well. I don't ever expect to have enough money to hire an architect anyway, even if I could find one to bill me the way I like.
>> If the actual project comes in over budget ... the architect's fee does not increase.
Ah. I missed that distinction the first time through. But I still think it gives the architect an incentive to inflate the budget at the beginning, enriching himself at the client's expense.
>> In nearly every case when it happens, the wrong people were hired to do the job.
Self evidently true, but not very helpful. Everybody thinks they're hiring the right people. Surely no one says, "I'm going to go out and hire the wrong architect so I can get less house than I'm paying for."
I'm with Dunc. We had a bad experience with the architect we hired for our addition, and I am unlikely to hire another. I can do better myself, and had to because his design as drawn was impossible to implement - he tried to stuff 16 feet of room into 12 feet of space. Did we set out to hire the wrong guy? Of course not. Did he turn out to be a moron who cost us money in spite of his uninspired design? Yes. Did we still have to pay his fee? Yes.
This doesn't exactly answer your question, but once upon a time, I answered an ad by a lumber company to draw houseplans. Turns out they wanted me to redraw existing plans on sheets that had their logo and address. Unethical, but I rationalized that I needed the money. These plans were the stock send away from a magazine ad sort of plans. When I got into it, I found that dimensions didn't add up, (they were forgetting wall thickness and stuff like that), the plans had a "walk-in" closet that was three feet square! and everything else about the plan set was bad. So I kept putting off doing the set and the lumber company kept calling for them. I think I did finally finish the one set and never went back. Nowadays I wouldn't even get involved to start with.
I think you need to sit down with someone and have them get to know you and what you want and expect and go from there. If you're going custom, go all the way. You could call a trade school or community college and talk to a teacher and get a student to help you. (Guess you have to know and trust the teacher and get someone he recommends. I got a job drawing house plans once that way therough a community college's Architectural Technology program).) The caveat is that you will be dealing with a newby. The advantages are that he can consult with the teacher (in my case he was a registered architect and pointed me in the right direction on a couple questions I had). The other advantage is the person will want to prove him/herself and will not be as expensive as an architect. Also will be less likely to have their own agenda, unlike so many architects. Incidentally, one of my fellow students was an architect who had formerly practiced in Yugoslavia and was taking the program to become familiar with the English terms for everything.
I don't know if you're still looking for house plans, but we used bungalowpros.com for our first owner-builder project and we're currently having a plan modified from thebungalowcompany.com. The cost for the plans (house and garage) with modifications and local code engineering will be about $4000 -- considerably less than an architect would charge. Their plans are $1500 with no modifications.
We had an interesting experience. We were told by the contractor that we were planning to deal with, that you never buy plans from a book or off the net; they never work out, they're never drawn for Canadian codes, etc etc. His suggestion was to show him the plan he picked out, then his guy would draw up correct plans, and we'd go from there.
I understood the logic, especially with the requirements for snow loads, etc etc, so we fell for it. Worked with this 'draftsman' for about 3 months; he kept adding details that he liked. In the end, the contractor decided that the price he put on paper would be some $50K higher than he started with. We put the whole process on hold.
We took the plans, that we had now paid a handsome price for, to another contractor, who worked up a price. He also commented that these lovely plans showed lots of nice detail, like furniture in the rooms, cars in the garage, etc, but depending on which elevation you looked at, had doors 3 ft above ground, all those nice features. As well, the roof was unsupported in 3 places. The builder thought that was pretty good, though; he'd seen plans from the same guy with unsupported loads in 5 places.
Sitting there over Christmas, in a rented duplex, looking at our nice lot that we couldn't seem to build on, we decided to go against some advise, and I ordered the plans. On Boxing Day. Two days later they were on my desk at the office. And do you know what? They were all drawn to Canadian code. To R2000 standards. All we had to do was to rearrange the entry so that we had a mud room, and move a couple of walls to suit.
Would I buy plans over the net? Absolutely. But I'd look them over carefully, too.