cost of basic plans for new house £1200 you have no interest in per m^2 or % fees

£1200+m2 usually what most of my run of the mill extension/refurb work comes out at .
For the complete quality project i agree with Tom, if you can find the right people . Though I've little experience of that type of work .
Most the projects I've worked on have been drawn by architects or draugtsmen who've had little interest in the onsite side and we the builders have work out the solution as we've gone along, with the building controls officer, to the things they've overlooked.

If i'd have followed the drawing on a current job we'd have a 8/4 steel crossing a landing ceiling in 3 places at a height of about 2.1m , instead we cranked one end and got it out the way a bit.

Several project i've worked on have used the expensive architects to get through planning then local draughtsmen for BC drawings. One example architect wanted £8000 for BC drawings , local guy did them for £1500. Having worked off previous architect BC drawings for first phase, not much between them for me as the builder having to work from them , both required me to tweck them to suit onsite conditons
This is all refurb though.

New builds a different world, I've no experiance of , I hope thing are a bit more pre-sorted before you start putting it up ?

I look forward to the day when I'll get the chance to work with some quality designers, though I'm a little concerned it'll be me that wont make the grade when that day comes!

Posted By: jamesingramconcerned it'll be me that wont make the grade

From all I've seen you say, your vibe is top quality - time to up your game and get up there, if you want to - can't fail. The niches do exist. Intelligence and energy are enough.

With hindsight I was very naive and thought "building regs" drawings would include all wiring and plumbing diagrams, and spell out what the building regs actually said I had to do.

We accidentally picked someone who apparently didn't care, yes we did get approval on the drawings but it wasn't completely buildable or at all informative. The builders and I had to puzzle it all out. On the plus side I learnt a lot in the process and gained confidence. The regs seem a piece of cake now.

Ah, hindsight. Be careful you know what you want and what you're getting for your money.

Are there any reasons that would stop us from working with a newly qualified architect?

The son of a friend has just finished his degree and is very keen to do the construction drawings for or project at a good rate. Does it matter in terms of getting our new build warranties whether our architect is newly qualified? do they need insurance?

I guess I'm not alone on this forum in being very involved in the detailing of our new build. I have always felt that if I didn't design it then it wouldn't end up being done how I wanted it.

FosterTom you're right & thanks for reminding me that I do also have to trust the person that I am paying to do their job, to be able to do it correctly without my constant input!

OP Was 'Building Reg's drawings' so what's all this stuff about architects...? OP asked for drawings not design or consultancy.

We have loads of building regs drawings, obviously we'd have to agree copyright release with the clients but should be ok... we also have some planning drawings you could have, in fact we have drawings of all sorts of things...



J

We have some construction drawings as well if you want those....?

J

I reckon drawings as the most important part of the package - drawings are simply a record of the thinking that happened before the hammer came to hand - they should reflect the thought processes that got to the agreed solution and communicate/instruct clearly. What a client pays for is not paper with lines and text but thought, experience and skill which tends to be primarily communicated visually.

The best quality is usually achieved by doing ALL the thinking/working out (not just by the architect/designer) up front and sticking to it once the build starts - thinking with a hammer in hand can work but in my experience it's usually too late.

Hi Martin,

Not sure there is anything to win here :-).... on fees I think you need something to form a framework to judge fees and build cost is as good as any - this reflects size & complexity, larger and more complex projects requiring more work - size alone would not take account of complexity which can be a huge undertaking. The most important aspect in fees is perhaps the incentive that exists for an overspend - fees, IMHO, should be fixed at an agreed/realistic project budget at the start with variations accounted for along the way - seems right to me - you know where you stand then?

Cost is not a good measure of size or complexity.

If you specify 3g top notch passive haus quality windows as opposed to off the shelf units you will be paying probably 3 -4 times as much and the architect will be charging you 3-4 times as much as well for doing no extra work. The same applies to expensive finishes they are no extra work.

Most of the details they produce will be standard ones they have churned out hundreds of times, its a waste of money you just need to have the confidence to believe you can do the job. Have a word with the timber frame supplier and see if he can recommend someone they have worked with before because as you point out they will have done quite a lot of the work themselves.

Also architects like to come back and charge more if the project goes over budget, even if they are responsible for the overspend. I have also come across many an architect that does a poor job and leaves it to the client and builder to sort out the problems.

I would get other quotes and only agree to a fixed price agreement. Many architects are short of work at the moment so you should be able to get competitive quotes. You will probably find a good architectural technician will be perfectly able to do the job for a fraction of the price.

The key is to use the best person for the job. I use architects for the design and concept but I have not found many to be that good when it comes to the technical side - they employ technicians to do that for them.

The RIAI ( Royal Institute of Architects Ireland ) used to publish a fee scale. It boroke down something like this -

Projects were separated out into 3 groups - simple - normal- complicated and then fees were tabulated according to construction costs

A bit like this Scottish fee scale which breaks projects into 5 categories of complexity

http://www.dualchas.com/pdf/fee_guide.pdf

The Competition Authority here banned fee scales in 1999 despite protests that the fee scale was not binding bit merely a guide. So now there is no reference point save for this survey. Absent from these graphs is terms of appointment and the level of service provided

http://www.riai.ie/public/downloads/Independent-Fee-Survey-2008.pdf

The question of fees in Ireland is as vexed in Ireland as in the UK with one of the main difficulties in my opinion is the lack of awareness from consumers as to the wide scope of services - and ability to select from same - that the profession offers. A regrettable race to the bottom is in place now mid recession with so many leaving the island mostly to Canada and Australia. Again.

I just did my own drawings for BC and construction. I did start out paying an architect but it wasn't a very satisfactory experience. Having read a lot here I know to a pretty good level of detail how I want it built, so I thought I'd just DIY.

The biggest problem is that I have no clue as to the relative costs of various ways of doing things, and costing them all to find out is a very time-consuming process. So it's easy to accidentally draw an unnecessarily expensive solution. The second biggest problem is that I haven't built any houses before and am not actually a carpenter so know that I don't know the 'default' detail for things that don't particularly matter. So there were a few bits in the roofing timberwork were the builder just did what he fancied rather than what I drew, which in fact all worked out OK. Next time could do a better job of this bit.

It is also very time-consuming, and almost completely unrelated to area. My extension is only 25m2 of new-build and 24m2 of new roof, but in fact I've still got almost as much work in drawings as for a whole house. There is still floor, walls, roof, doors, windows, thresholds, beams, structural mountings, insulation, airtightness, junctions with existing structure, eaves, guttering, drains.

So, don't do this unless you enjoy staying up late fighting CAD software and for _everything_ to be your problem, but the point I suppose I'm making is that it is not rocket science, it just requires a detailed knowledge of building construction details (largely available on this forum), (and you need to read the building regs - although complying with that is actually fairly easy if you are overspeccing anyway - exotic new materials/products/details without BBA certs are the only sticky issue - and I had no trouble even with random structural stuff I invented along the way).

And also that relating the fee to the building area seems daft to me. It should actually be related to the number of different items that need detailing.

On my project I only wanted plans that would get me passed building regs, no more.

Full working drawings are different from building regs ones.

Hey, there's nothing in the regs that prevents 1.5m ceiling height except at the top of stairs etc - we should give the architect credit, it was probably his spatial intension for the project... low ceilings help make the client feel big and floor area massive :-)