Help with House Plans

[saltman]

I hired a draftsman that I found advertised in the local news paper. He had good references and then burned me. I hired him in August to have everything done by September.

In November he informed me the plan was too complicated and for an extra 1900.00 he woud hire and engineer to finish the plans. Luckly I had only given him 500.00 up front.

What I ended up with was some drawings that reflect the basic floor plans and elevations but give no detail. The roof is a 12-12 pitch which was too complicated for him since it had a covered patio. He was pretty much an incompetent moron who was more concerend about where the furniture would go then what size beam to use.

Constuction cost go up because of the price of materials and labor, neither affects the Architects they are driven by demand and greed. When the average price of a home here is over 500,000 and contractors charge 300.00 a square foot to build then the Architects and the Engineers look at it as a chance to cash in (and contractors). I'll go the mail order route or draw up plans on Auto Cad myself or even move in a manufactured home before I pay those prices.

Thanks for all the ideas

 

[flusher]

Does anyone know of someone who can draw house plans that are compliant with building codes in Southern California??

I have talked with several architetcs here and they want 7,000.00 for a 1,600 square foot home?? Seem outragous to me since I my buddy just paid 1,700.00 for his 6,000.00 square foot home in Washington State.

I am located in San Diego County (home of the ripp offs) Republic of California.

Like Paddy said, pay the $800 or so and buy the house plans from whereever you got that rendering you attached to your initial post. My advice is to get the reproducible set that allows you to make 10-12 copies, assuming the vendor has such a set available. If not, you'll need a minimum of 8 copies. The building dept will keep 2 copies for their files and your general contractor and his subs will need at least 4 copies.

If your new house is a conventional stick frame construction, you won't need any special engineering analysis done to get your building permit. Just make sure that you call out the plywood corner bracing details on your drawings. Plans checkers in the building dept are looking for code violations and non-compliant bracing is a common problem with house plans.

Also in CA you need to be sure that the plans are suitable for your seismic zone. You have to call out the number and size of steel rebar in the foundation and slab that's appropriate for your zone. You also may have to call out suitable Simpson connectors for the building frame to meet seismic requirements. The plans checker will tell you how to modify your drawings to meet code. Most of these mods can be made right on the drawing using the appropriate callouts.

 

[Lumberjack_jeff]

I hired a draftsman that I found advertised in the local news paper. He had good references and then burned me. I hired him in August to have everything done by September.

In November he informed me the plan was too complicated and for an extra 1900.00 he woud hire and engineer to finish the plans. Luckly I had only given him 500.00 up front.

What I ended up with was some drawings that reflect the basic floor plans and elevations but give no detail. The roof is a 12-12 pitch which was too complicated for him since it had a covered patio. He was pretty much an incompetent moron who was more concerend about where the furniture would go then what size beam to use.

Constuction cost go up because of the price of materials and labor, neither affects the Architects they are driven by demand and greed. When the average price of a home here is over 500,000 and contractors charge 300.00 a square foot to build then the Architects and the Engineers look at it as a chance to cash in (and contractors). I'll go the mail order route or draw up plans on Auto Cad myself or even move in a manufactured home before I pay those prices.

I bought a houseplan on disk, mirrored it and made some modifications in Autocad. I took the plans to the county plans examiner and he rejected them because they didn't comply with the prescriptive code.

The "prescriptive code" he explained to me is a cookbook against which which county building officials can evaluate house plans, avoiding the need to hire an engineer. He gave me a list of engineers to call, I hired the top guy on the list for about $1000.

The engineer did the shear wall calculations and threw in the beam calculations. Unfortunately, the beam calculations were counterproductive because the truss manufacturer had to do these anyway - the end result being that I have a big beam under a big girder truss.

FWIW, I'm a draftsman and I don't consider myself incompetent because I could not (legally, if nothing else) do the engineering for beam calculations.

I don't know what the codes are in San Diego, but I would anticipate that they have something analagous to prescriptive codes. It might save a lot of money to ask the building department what their specific requirements are.

Here's a picture of it. I've done everything except sheetrock and rough plumbing myself.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y58/lumberjack_jeff/8_19_06_houseb.jpg

 

[Lumberjack_jeff]

Like Paddy said, pay the $800 or so and buy the house plans from whereever you got that rendering you attached to your initial post. My advice is to get the reproducible set that allows you to make 10-12 copies, assuming the vendor has such a set available. If not, you'll need a minimum of 8 copies. The building dept will keep 2 copies for their files and your general contractor and his subs will need at least 4 copies.

If your new house is a conventional stick frame construction, you won't need any special engineering analysis done to get your building permit. Just make sure that you call out the plywood corner bracing details on your drawings. Plans checkers in the building dept are looking for code violations and non-compliant bracing is a common problem with house plans.

Also in CA you need to be sure that the plans are suitable for your seismic zone. You have to call out the number and size of steel rebar in the foundation and slab that's appropriate for your zone. You also may have to call out suitable Simpson connectors for the building frame to meet seismic requirements. The plans checker will tell you how to modify your drawings to meet code. Most of these mods can be made right on the drawing using the appropriate callouts.

I bought a stock plan on disk ($700 - if memory serves) but there were many things about it that were not compliant with current codes - in fact they specificially disclaimed a guarantee on code compliance.

I had to have engineering done because there was insufficient corners for bracing, a too-large open foyer as well as a stairwell that was too steep.

YMMV, but buying a stock plan is no guarantee that they'll work without mods.

 

[saltman]

Thanks again for all the help. I did some work today and found two engineers who are willing to work off of plans that I purchase off the Internet. I got their names from a draftsman off of Craigs list. The bottom line is that unless you have no windows within 4 feet of a wall or have a slab foundation then an engineer is needed here in San Diego County. The drafsman was very helpful and will help with the plan check process for a reasonable amount even though I am not going to use him for the plans since HE WANTS 10% OF CONSTRUCTION COSTS!!! Basicly he told me that's what he can get else where so why work for me for less. Oh well.




Nice house Lumberjack!!

 

[flusher]

Thanks again for all the help. I did some work today and found two engineers who are willing to work off of plans that I purchase off the Internet. I got their names from a draftsman off of Craigs list. The bottom line is that unless you have no windows within 4 feet of a wall or have a slab foundation then an engineer is needed here in San Diego County. The drafsman was very helpful and will help with the plan check process for a reasonable amount even though I am not going to use him for the plans since HE WANTS 10% OF CONSTRUCTION COSTS!!! Basicly he told me that's what he can get else where so why work for me for less. Oh well.




Nice house Lumberjack!!

I assume you mean that SD County requires windows to be located more than 4 feet from an exterior corner. That's so you can get enough plywood bracing in the corner (typically a 4x8 ft piece of OSB nailed to the studs per the building code).

My 1800 sf 3BR/2BA manufactured home (double wide) has two 3'W x 6'H windows in one corner of the master BR. These windows are 12" from the exterior corner.

Manufactured homes are built to federal gov't (HUD) standards which supercede local building codes for the most part.

My house is built like most stick frame, site-built homes (2x6 frame, 1/2" OSB sheathing, Tyvek house wrap and Hardipanel/Hardiplank siding). The exterior corners have stress panels to keep the frame from squirming around.

 

[Joe1]

Saltman:

Are you going to do the construction yourself?

When I guilt in San Luis Obispo, also in the Peoples Republic of California, starting in late 2001 and finishing in 01/03 I prepared the plans in a rough form on the back of one of those desktop calenders. I found a "Builder/Designer" that I hired to build the house. He finalized the plans and hired an architect to do the necessary structural drawings. I looked thru a half dozen building plans books but couldn't find what I liked.

The builder explained that as the builder as well as the designed he would design something that he could build in a relatively easy manner. I.e. the architect could design something that the architect thought was great but could be an expensive bear to actually build.

I ended up with a 3,350 sq ft custom one story so I didn't get a cheap house just because it was easy to build. I spent nearly every day working with the buiilder on the house and consequently I got what we wanted. Even with plans you're going to want changes as you go so it's important to be onsite.

E-mail me with a private e-mail if you desire and I'll be glad to provide what I learned, for whatever it was worth.

Joe

 

[Joe1]

Saltman:

Whomever you choose for a builder, it is very important that you or your wife are there as much as possible, otherwise it becomes the contractors house and not yours. When we built, I was onsite 90% of the time. I helped with moving lumber, tieing steel for the footings, framing, etc. I reframed a wall in the dining room which was originally going to be a french door but we decided later to make into a window with sidelights. We had one window moved 18 inches in one wall because we realized after it was framed that the bed would be half under the window and half not and would look odd.

We had an EXCELLENT, RELIABLE AND THOROUGHLY HONEST BUILDER with whom we had zero problems.

Some inexpensive things we did was to have the studs behid the refrigerator turned 90 degrees so the standard refrigerator lined up more with standard cabinet depths. We used several pocket doors and used 2 X 6 studs in those walls so the framing on each side of the door was 2X material and not one by's adding rigidity to those walls. In our master bath, we had a "medicine cabinet" framed into an otherwise unused wall and it ended up around 32" wide and 48" high and 3 1/2" deep with double door access to store extra things like deodorant, soap, shaving cream, etc. Stuff you would otherwise lose under the sink. We also had bathroom sinks at kitchen sink height for less bending over. We had framed into the pantry wall that we could also otherwise not use a space 14 1/2" wide by about 42" high. I built a spice rack that would fit into that space so that we could store 40 or so bottles of spices completely accessable and completely out of the way.

When we had the tub installed, I had them drill another hole in the tub and connect a telephone shower head of a flexible hose to be able to wash kids, etc more easily. We also had them install an access panel to reach the jacuzzi pump so we don't have to cut access later.

This stuff is all cheap when building and makes for convenience later on.

I also had installed a recirculating system for hot water which constantly circulates hot water to each kitchen, bath and shower outlet so that when turning the hot water tap on you only have to wait for the hot water to travel a few feet. The miliamp pump uses little electricity and saves us wasting water while it travel some 75' to a faucet.

I also installed a telephone outlet in the master commode area for convenience. Also, we found Bemis brand toilet seats for about $10.00 more than standard seats that do not slam when dropped. They close silently and slowly so no slamming by me or the kids.

Since you're not buying into a tract, you can modify your house plans and house before and as you go. I think it's easier to do this than remodel. I would recommend you go to as many new tracts, particularly at the high end for neat ideas to incorporate in your house. We must have visited well over 100 model homes on both coasts. Also, show the plans to some friends that are into house designs, etc. We did that and one friend pointed out the fact that the Master bedroom seemed small. We made it about 18" longer and it made a big difference.

As I said in the previous posting, I would be happy to take a private E-mail if you want to discuss how our building went and why it went the way it did and discuss options. I'll be back in California on 1/4/07.

Good luck