About Your Plans

My designer provided six copies of the sets of plans. Two of those copies go to the parish when I apply for the permit. From all I read in owner-builder books, I expected I would need more copies. Now that I'm in the process of getting bids from various tradesmen, I see why.

I had 3 more copies made so that I can get more bids at the same time. Contractors want to take the plans with them to study as they make their estimate. These guys are hard enough to get in touch with to begin with. I don't want to miss opportunities by not having a set of plans handy when they're available to meet. I found a local copy center that charged $3.50 per page, and I have 9 pages in my plan set.

Most contractors don't need all the pages in the set. For example, the slab and piling contractors only need the 3 pages that show the plot plan, the slab design, and the piling details. But since most of my activity right now is dealing with these parts of the job, I was glad I had the copies made.


Learning About Contractors Through Your Plans?

Some plans I've loaned out have come back neat and clean. One person in particular had them for 2-3 days and brought them back a bit folded and ragged with a coffee stain. I wonder how much that tells me about the neatness and quality of their work? This is a slab guy (my first form/pour/finish bid), and I asked him for the location of a current job where I could go see his work. So I'll be able to see for myself.


Plumbers

In other news, I'm waiting for my first plumbing bid. I visited a job his crew was doing, and I was satisfied (not that I have any deep insight into what I saw or anything...). They add plaster under the tubs and showers to give them a good solid feel to your feet, they secure pipes to studs to keep them solid, and they clean up after themselves. I was told that this guy was very good, but not cheap. He does seem professional, which is more than I can say for another plumber I met today...

I went to his house, and he knew I was coming. It's not that I expected him to clean the whole house, but there was clutter everywhere. He spread out my plans on top of some clutter on the coffe table. He gave them a quick study as be handled them roughly & carelessly. Then he spouted something about my laundry room floor drain requiring an expensive drain with some other expensive thing. He threw out a range of $14k-15k for the job, and didn't even want to keep the plans so he could go over it in more detail. That was it. When I left, he didn't even bother to walk me to the front door. I don't think I'll be hiring him... :) But it was good to at least get a price range to guage other bids by.

Plans Complete!

This is one of those times when pieces just seem to come together at once. I picked up my final plans from the designer today. But leading up to that, some things just fell in line.

I had been waiting about a month since the last time I heard from him. Then he had another revision ready, and for the very first time I got to see things other than the basic floorplan: lighting plan, slab plan, piling plan, etc. He said that I should review and get back to him quickly so he could wrap my project up by Friday. If I was to go over a week, then he expected me to pay him at least half of what I still owed him. I See. So, it's okay for him to take weeks to do his part, but I need to give him a quick turnaround and wrap everything up because it's convenient for him?

For the floorplan, we went through about 5 revision cycles. Now, I'm certainly ready to move ahead on this, but I wasn't about to rush through everything else without thinking it through or at least understanding the notes and diagrams for the new parts of the plan. I turns out that it really wasn't a rush.

Well, one of my biggest questions centered around the elevation of the slab. There's a local regulation that your slab needs to be the higher of the base flood elevation or three feet above the crest of the street. The plans had been drawn up with a total slab height (slab + footings/chain wall) of 2 ft. I didn't understand if the designer made assumptions about the present elevation of the lot or what. How did he know I didn't need three feet to build high enough?

I asked him, and he said they made assumptions, but if it turned out I needed a taller slab they'd modify the plans. The survey would tell me if this would be enough. Thus the other piece that fell nicely in place: I had ordered the survey about 4-5 weeks prior, and I had been on the phone with them lately trying to get it done. On my way out the door to bring my last revisions to the designer, the survey company called. It was ready to be picked up. And it turns out that my lot is roughly one foot below the required slab height. That means the slab plan they came up with is fine. It'll be about a foot out of the ground, and the chain walls will be about a foot in the ground.

My other questions were answered by the designer and some research on the web. For example: 6x6 2.9/2.9 WWF is "wire welded fabric", or highway wire, the large chicken wire type stuff they put in concrete to reinforce it. So I got all my questions answered and revisions made, and today I picked up the final plans. I can still go back if I discover some final tweaks are needed by next week. Otherwise, I need to pay the designer the rest of what I owe him and take two copies to the engineer to have them stamped. Then I can go apply for the permit.

I'm going with the post-tension slab instead of traditional rebar reinforced concrete. It's a bit of a risk because none of my family knows much about this method. But I hear from friends and professionals that it's a solid concept and it's good to use in our area. I'm starting to see them used more and more around the area.

Finally, I also got a bid for my pilings. I need 54 of them, and the bid is cheaper than I expected. I braced myself for $10k-15k, but the bid is around $8,000 (~$165 per piling). I also know now that I need to put some more sand down where the house & garage will go. About another foot. So as soon as I can get over there to stake out roughly where the boundaries are, I'll schedule the delivery of the sand.

Choosing an Architect

I'm playing a bit of catch-up with this post since I chose someone to draw up my plans a couple of months ago, but I've had someone mention that they're interested in reading about this kind of thing. But first, a word about architects and designers. An architect is more expensive and generally has more training and/or experience. An architect can also stamp his or her own drawings as structurally sound. A designer is usually cheaper. They can create the drawings, but they can't certify them with a stamp. In this case, an engineer or an architect needs to study the drawings and stamp them.

I wound up going with a designer. There was a highly scientific and complex process I used to find him: First, I went online and searched for architects near my city. Then I started calling them! :) Yeah, that's it. The list consisted of both architects and designers. Several of the ones I called only handled commercial projects. Others were too busy to take on more work.

I narrowed it down to three. One was an old guy who's retired from full time work but still does residential projects on the side. He sounded like he'd been around the block a few times dealing with the parish inspectors, and he was very experienced. Another candidate drew the plans for the house going up across the street from my parents. I got his name from their plans. He sounded young on the phone, and I didn't know how experienced he was. The third was a guy I happened to call from my list. I spoke with him on the phone and just had a good comfort level with him. He had a website showing samples of other drawings he had done. And he was cheaper than the other two. This is the person I eventually went with.

It's been a good experience. He's easy going, but he offers lots of good suggestions and things to consider about things that I said I wanted. I do wish he had been a little quicker in getting things to me, but slowing down the process has given me more time to mull over every aspect of the design and helps ensure I will end up with a better home. We started the process in May. It's now mid-July, and I don't have the final plans yet. A good chunk of that time has been due to me. When I've gotten a revision of the plans from him, I've spent some time really studying it and thinking about details I want to change. Each time he gives me a new version, he says that he hopes to have me finished up in the next week or so. I think we are winding down, though. There are only 2-3 things I had questions on or wanted to change on these last plans. Then he'll do the basic lighting plan that the parish expects to see and send everything to the engineer for stamping after I approve it all one last time.

I'm anxious to get started with actual building!