The software doesn’t ensure anything meets code, whether we’re talking building code or energy code. The guy using it determines that and it takes knowledge. So be selective in who you hire to draft if you go that route, or you’re going to have to pay someone to fix it later.

There are also zoning regs to concern with, setbacks and easements, and likely the need for approvals from the AHJ to include aesthetics. Not hard for a layperson to accomplish.

Some architects are assholes. Some are not.

Was it an architect who created these plans for $15000?  Were they hand drawn?

The software will do basics such as joist and rafter spans, beam type and length, need for lally columns, etc. It's not going to tell you what fasteners or wire gauge to use.

I feel you OP.  We’re doing a small MIL suite on the back of the house right now.  It took 5mo the for the architect firm to get the plans right on a simple 376 sq foot rectangle.  Literally mind boggling.  My wife the GC and I had a sit down meeting with the designer went over what we wanted a rough sketch the whole deal.  A month later a get a plan that was the opposite of what I asked for devoid of any of the features we specifically said we’d want (like a bathroom lol).

@sitdwnandhngon
Years back, I was doing a multi-million dollar vacation home, on this posh lake. So many rules. The Architecture firm worked on the plans for >18months. So many design items were "illegal" for this community. Not to mention, the house was 2ft higher than it was allowed to be. We only found that lil tidbit out when we got to the second floor decking. I had to redesign the front roofline and the great room's entire ceiling and roof. Afterall, we still had to make sure the chimney (which is the tallest part of the structure) met code.

Yeah, we pretty much go the same "oops" from the firm that designed it.

I’ll second the advice about finding out whether you need a set of stamped plans to Build or  just a set of plans that meet code.
I’m a commercial GC who specializes in design build interiors doing most of the drawings in house.
When I did residential my go to “architect” was actually a draftsman.  He could not pass the final test to get his stamp.
I recommended him to a client for a big addition but his wife chose a high- end architectural firm that was locally famous for something. Paid a $20k retainer and gave them a list of must haves. Top 2 were an additional bedroom & separate laundry not in basement and $400k max budget.  They come out after a while with sketches of this grand design and do a big reveal.
They did not do one thing that was asked for and the design was $800k plus. $20k wasted. By the time my referred guy got involved interest rates killed the deal.

Listen to your gut OP.

What software are we talking about? Genuinely curious. I want to get my hands on it.

I’m certified by Autodesk in Revit and use AutoCAD daily. I have experience with Catia and VectorWorks as well as other CAD programs to make pretty pictures.

A draftsman can produce excellent plans with CAD as long as they perform their due diligence. Anyone worth their salt and your money uses Revit. ETA: that’s just my bias since I use Revit everyday.

In most States you don’t have to be licensed to design houses.  Consequently 99.9 percent of the architects that do single family are the lowest on the architecture totem pole.  The other architects are going to take higher paying work that doesn’t involve dealing with daily changes from the whining housewife,etc.  The only reason to hire one would be if you wanted something unique. It sounds  like you are trying to build a vanilla box.  I would hire a contractor and you’ll get what you looking for.

I have found that most architects are able to draw up a box with windows and that's about it.

That also tend to “design” to default CADD settings. I hope you like all your windows indexed 8” off the nearest wall.

Be careful with going with your own design from scratch. There are a lot of features that look great in 2D that don’t really work out too well in actual construction.

<———voice of experience

Also, the price of construction right now is insane. 1.6x as much as it was just two years ago in some markets.

You don't know anybody like this, do you?

I'm building a house with a budget of $950K not including the lot. I've met with 3 builders and 2 architects. I narrowed it down to one builder, but I'll meet with at least 4 or 5 more architects. This will be my second custom build. Architects are artist and will try to impose their vision on you. Stick to your guns and design what you want. I'm a community college drop out with money and they all treated me with respect.

90%+ of homes in the US are built with no architect. To be honest,  most people don't want to pay or care for what an architect has to offer.

Unless you want something special or unique, get a drafter or custom home builder to do what you want, you'll be happier and save money.


This from your resident architect.

Agree. We built our house 3 years ago and picked out our plans online using one of those free services showing exterior of house and the floor plans with dimensions. We took this to our builder and he plugged everything into a computer and we made adjustments to the floor plan as needed. It really was that easy. There is no need for an architect.

I would not do house plans as an engineer.

Architects, engineers and people who list PhD behind their name in every single piece of email you exchange with them, have the most overinflated egos ever.

Architects think they're engineers, but they're really just bad artists.  

I fired an architect like you describe because he wanted to design his vision, not ours - at $300/sqft.  Actually had to tell him to fuck off because he wouldn't take "no" for an answer.  He was an arrogant prick too.

I only personally know one architect, and he is a great dude.

He designed his own house and garage though....and interesting only starts to describe it.

My only thing against them in a broad brush sense is that they seem to over complicate designs for no apparent reason. There's nothing wrong with a simple floor plan, just make it look good. We don't need to bring neo-modern-post gothic chic into the design of my 2000 sq ft house....I just want a box where I can store my family.

I always used to say an architect is a person whose portfolio couldn’t get them into art school.  So theyya failed artist. Unfortunately art doesn’t have to serve a purpose, but buildings do.

Not sure about initial drawings, but our plans were rendered in CAD.

I know it was an architect because the guy I was building for was an engineer, and I made mention one day of "can you call the engineer that drew the plans and ask them about a few things". He promptly said "She's not an engineer, only an architect"

I don't know exactly how much the plans were, but I know it was a good chunk of change. The house was nearly a million dollar house though, all kinds of crazy shit going on.

It was on that job when I figured out how funny watching engineers bash other types of engineers could be, and how much they didn't like people calling the architect and engineer.

Every profession has prima donnas.

Architects, artists, cops, doctors, plumbers.

If your personalities clash now, it probably won't get better. Move along.

I've found "highly recommended" equals jack shit.

I manufacture and build log homes, OP. Whenever I have a potential customer hand me plans while telling me they had an architect draw them I always groan and get ready to bust bubbles. I am not sure I have ever received a set that could be built as is and 100% of the time it was so far out of the customers budget as to be a farce. I am sure there are great architects out there. I just never have the pleasure of running into them.

Oh really? Tell me more lol

Double tap

This is the one and only true architect

@302w

Possible contractor issue in reviewing the plans coupled with an insufficient bid? Did subs miss content on the plans? Was the building constructed per plans and specifications?

Change orders can be generated by the above and a number not mentioned. Any of the Change Orders executed as a result of Owner changes? Did City Inspectors require more than what required per Code or that was submitted and approved for Permit ? These all can result in unforeseen delays and change orders.

Were all the issues Architectural and not another design consultants? Were RFI's generated by the contractor requesting more detailed information/ content? What about project submittals? Owner approved content/ items?

Not saying every architect pisses excellence or has a sent out a 100% error free set, but I doubt that all architects suck.

The worst is bad design consultant coordiantion. Ultimately, the architect of record is the party that gets smeared in mud.

My Brother is an residential architect.  He tells me some clients are more demanding than others.  You OP seem very demanding.  Maybe he doesn't want to date you!  

Op has a shit load of money and wants it to be like he wants. Don't blame op.

When I was designing the addition to the farmhouse we bought, the fellow we used to draw the plans didn't charge much at all.  I think we had $ 600.00 in his services with two review meetings.  He had a small business he ran out of his basement.  He does all the drawing.  If it needs a stamp, there is an engineer he works with that will stamp the plans.  The engineer stamp costs a whole lot more than he does.

The small expense was well worth the cost.  He came highly recommended via word of mouth, as he does not advertise and already has all the work he desires.

Find a residential designer who has a relationship with a civil engineer who will do the structural design port and site work portion. Pay the civil to do construction observations. By doing this you will be insured that the contractor won’t cut corners on the foundation work and structural details. If the home has a sound foundation and structural bones, everything else can be fixed if something goes wrong.

There are plenty of civil engineers who crank out residential stuff out of a small office or their spare bedroom.

I can't tell you what you should do but I can tell you what we did.

Although we disagreed on a few things and couldn't find solutions for a few problems, my wife & I had a pretty good ideal of what we wanted. I have 40+ years experience in construction (Plg/Mech) but nothing recent in residential so I have more than a layman's knowledge of the process. We built in May 2020 just as building materials were beginning to escalate so time was a factor. I drew our floor plans in AutoCAD and presented them to a house designer & builder with "problem areas" clouded. The house designer was recommended by another builder we had interviewed. The four of us worked on the issues for a few weeks then had a floor plan we all liked. The designer continued to work on a "complete set" of drawings as we started construction. Cabinets & such. At the end of the day, I was pretty disappointed in the drawings but the 3D walkthrough model was very beneficial to my wife helping her visualize what a floor plan would eventually become. We were very much involved with the building process (I did the Plg/Mech and was living there in an RV) so the builder and I worked out missing details and changes along the way. I wouldn't have proceeded with such an incomplete set of drawings if I hadn't have had a high level of confidence in the builder. I believe this is where my "experience" in the industry paid off most. The builder and I didn't walk away from the project best friends, we had a few "critical conversations" during the process, but I don't think either of us would hesitate (for long) to work together again.

If you know (generally) what you want, you don't need to hire someone to explain it to you. You just need to hire someone to provide a plan to a builder so they can build it for you.

PERFECT! Fuck that guy. And the other guy.

I just want to say that if you ever want to see the depth and breadth of the evil inherent in the modern American government sprawl build a house.

The stupidest guy in my fraternity became a architect after he flunked out of dental school.

@diesel1

This is how I got started, took drafting in high school and my teacher saw that I had some talent and sent me to his buddies who had a home plan service (Baton Rouge Plan Service, Thanks Lonnie and David) and they put me to work after school....then I went on to work for an architectural firm....I was cranking out the plans in college, making a lot of money and was living high on the hog for a poor college student.  Was damn good money then

Fire him.  He designs what he wants, not what you want.  You'll never be happy if you build to his plans.

BTW, architects think they're artists and designing their vision, not yours.

My architect was great.  humble, reasonable, and a good listener.  I am a PE and spend a summer doing A&E work, which was enough to allow us to work well together and for me to handle some of the structural stuff.

I'd suggest starting with a vague floor plan.  Get yourself some engineering paper (the kind with the grid on the back) and sketch it out by hand.  You can drive down cost by having your stuff together and letting your architect know that you aren't there for marriage counseling or to suck the life out of him.  Have your architect take a pass at the floor plan and then red line that drawing (that is, mark up with a red pen).  sort that out and move on to elevations and do the same.  It's not hard, it is just that most people don't communicate clearly and then they get frustrated.  Redlining makes everything clear.  We spent months going back and forth, and when we built, we only made two small no-cost changes.  Communicating, in their language (red ink), is the best way to get this done IMHO.

Arrogant architect? He went to skule to be able to draw them piktures...

If you don't like him fire him now. It'll only get worse. He obviously doesn't want to listen to your input.

Noooooo sir, not a one!

It's become evident, over the last several years, that the fancy renderings and walk-throughs are more important to the architect than spending the time to review their drawings and check their dimensioning. Obviously, making sure the owner knows what to expect so they can sign off on the plan is important.  But the quality control is pitiful the majority of the time.

This.

Find someone else. He ain't the only one out there.

the one I worked with on my house was great. I brought him a stock plan, told him the changes I wanted, he said no problem and suggested a couple of other changes based on the bump outs I was doing to make the space more functional, he was absolutely right on those suggestions. Maybe 3 hours of total meetings over 3 get to togethers.

Your post reeks of pretentiousness. What does your husband think about all of this? Architect may be a dud but I'd take a deep, deep look into your contribution to the situation.

And then you end up with this: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell

I'm not saying OP's architect isn't an asshole or anything, but one needs to find an architect that works with their style, then find common ground through examples of inspiration/ideas, then actually trust the professional to bring a coherent vision into reality that meets the needs originally laid out.

I was interested in a specific building style a few years ago, so I took a fairly inexpensive class on it - the class consisted of being part of the build crew for a week to build the house (we built most of the part that concerned the style the class focused on).  This worked well for me, as I was in construction for a brief period of time before I became a CPA.   I tried to talk with the owner some (as he was also building with us).  His architect experience was, well not that great (dean of the school at the primary university in their state).  Oh the house looked fancy - but we had to redesign a significant portions of the plans on site as he did not listen at all to consultant who had given him the design limitations of the materials we were using (such as acceptable wall heights).

I have no doubt they will have a beautiful house when it is over - but a rather stupid one.  The purpose of the design was for insulation.  Then they put in 8 sliding glass doors on a 1200 sq house.  Geeze.  Why use super insulation when almost 1/2 of your walls are glass anyway.  Not to mention the house costed over $750/sq foot.  Sadly, I would have probably left with a completely different opinion of the building style if I had worked on the class a year earlier in Texas - which was a vastly larger house that actually took advantage of the building style and did it in an economical fashion without a arrogant architect at it's heart.
---
I dealt my professional career with the code of not offending clients, my personality could not conflict with theirs.  My clients respected my technical knowledge, and I did not judge them (we kind of had a saying - we did not care about our clients personal or business lives if their money was green - the full spectrum of society offered good clients.  We had staff quit or be terminated over this.  The only real definitions of a good client included 2 things - they did not ask us to do anything illegal and they paid their bills.  

But yes now that I am retired, I really don't feel like wasting my time being talked down to - our clients respected us, and we showed respect to them.  I had a misconception of what an architect was apparently.  I had thought an architect could help refine my plans, show me where I wasted space, how to create a better flow in the house, possibly point out some additions that would make it more livable.  Then produce a product that I could hand over to my builder to revise and actually get the job done.   I did not realize that many architects are more concerned with their portfolio of designs that represent their personality.

This. You have been warned.

I tried to hire an architect years ago.  $80K is what he wanted for a set of house plans.  We ended up buying some online for about $4K

When I read posts like this lacking all significant detail but offering some extreme dichotomy I always think "I went to the Ferrari dealership and they wanted $250,000 for a car. I ended up buying a car for $500 from a junkyard down the street."