Building a PGH in DC area
Mauro_Zammarano
| Posted in General Questions on
Hello,
after struggling for too long with a local builder and architect that had no idea how to design an energy efficient house I am restarting from scratch. I have found several great architects in the area with passive house certifications etc. but they are quite expensive with fees that oscillates between 10% and 16% of the total cost of the house. I am now looking at predesigned floorplans and design/build contractors. Any advice for a specific website or company? I am happy with a standard PGH design with limited customizations. I just do not want to get stuck with the wrong folks again. Thank you!
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I'm not a fan of architects who charge as a percentage of the cost of construction. My question is always "what incentive do you have to save me money?" I hired one for a quite expensive renovation and new 2 story garage. Her fee was more or less fixed (estimated), with an hourly for extra work as needed. I require a minimum of site supervision from her. She's doing a great job and dare I say the fee would equal less than 2% of the construction cost, including the structural engineer.
If I were you, I'd spend a few hours researching pre-made, pre-engineered, site delivered energy efficient homes that get assembled on site. There are some very good companies out there that can save you tons of design effort and deliver a great product. They're not necessarily the least expensive way to go, but if I were contemplating building from scratch and was going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars doing so, I'd do my homework on these, go visit the factories and choose the best one I could find.
I was indeed looking into modular homes but the closest companies are in PA and they do only traditional styles like farmhouse and we prefer modern/contemporary. All modern/contemporary modular homes I have seen are from California and are not even available here. For the architect, 2% in this area would be a dream! Can you share her information? My email is [email protected] Thanks!
A design professional charging the equivalent of 2% of construction costs on a relatively modest project is either very new to the field and under-charging, or they are providing abbreviated services. The issue of charging a fixed fee, percentage fee or hourly is hotly debated among architects and designers and all sides have reasonable arguments. The argument against billing hourly is that the designer has no incentive to not run up the bill with additional hours. 6-10% is pretty typical for high-quality, full service design; up to 15% is common for high-end projects with a lot of custom details. That's my experience having designed hundreds of custom residential projects and a lot of time talking with architects and designers from all over the US. I have usually billed hourly but many of my competitors/colleagues do fixed price; different approaches appeal to different clients, but many seem to prefer fixed price.
Check out this site for pre-designed homes: https://libertyhouseplans.com/.
I believe this Maine-based company works as far south as DC but I could be wrong: https://www.brightbuilthome.com/.
Thanks Michael, good point about hourly billing. I would definitely feel more comfortable with a fixed rate (less unknowns). I checked those links you kindly provided but they seem to specialize on traditional styles and we prefer contemporary/modern styles. So I guess my question is:
Is there any website offering energy efficient pre made plans with a "modernish" design?
If you say so, but neither is the case for our architect.
My architect is a seasoned, well regarded professional who specializes in a certain area of CT. She is well known and recommended by many. Billing or even analyzing design services based on construction costs just seems silly to me, like comparing construction costs psf in disparate parts of the country, but I don't do this for a living. I'm just a guy with a calculator and a checkbook.
Perhaps my area just has very high construction costs resulting in abnormal fee percentages. All I know is I'm pretty familiar with construction, have a good builder and have been very happy with our architect so far.
Too late now anyway. Plans are finished.
After almost 20 years of designing projects by the hour, it's interesting to look back and compare the design fee to the construction fee; they usually fall in a narrow range when doing full-service design. More expensive projects usually involve more complicated details and more coordination of consultants, driving up the fee. Of course there are situations with ridiculously expensive materials that could just as easily have been something off the shelf, but on most projects they average out. I was just talking with an architect tonight who agrees; she's been at it for decades and finds that whether fixed-fee or hourly, for a similar scope of work the cost usually ends up being about the same.
If you are looking for a project, one option is to learn a design package, Sketchup is a good one, and do your own design. From there hand it off to a registered designer to make the drawings. A designer is someone that can produce drawings the city will accept. They tend to be much cheaper than an architect.
When you are doing your own design, you can further save a bit of design cost by sticking to the prescriptive part of the code. This might mean a bit of creative thinking but also saves you structural engineering costs. Saving this cost isn't always worth it though especially if engineered structures (ie I-joist, floor or roof trusses) can significantly simplify the build.
Hello Akos, yes I was already working on a floorplan just to have a better idea of what I wanted but I would not try to get into structural design and I am even worried to miss few things like enough space for return ducts, etc. I would also not mind playing with Beopt for energy optimization at a later stage. So if I go with a designer for the drawings who else should I interact with to be sure I am not missing critical mechanical or structural components? A structural engineer and maybe HVAC contractor? Thank you!
I have yet to see a residential drawing from an architect that had HVAC design in it which is a big fail. Even when I had full drawings with exact HVAC ducting most HVAC techs wanted to run ducting as they felt with random bulkhead all over the place.
BeOpt is nice but you can do most of the energy modeling with a couple of hand calculations.
Say you have 1000sqft of R24 exterior wall in zone 5 around 5000 heating degree days.
The yearly heat loss through that wall would be:
-5000 HDD * 24h * 1000 sqft / R24=50 Therms.
From there it is an easy calculation of how much that costs. Say you have $0.10 electricity.
50Therms * 29.3 = 1465 kwh
1465kWh * $0.10= $145.5
So $145/season if heating that amount of wall with resistance heat. With a COP 3 heat pumps that would be about 1/3 that or ~$50/season.
You can repeat this calculation for any surface. Roof, window, it all works the same.
Generally you'll find that much above code min is not worth it.
As for design, my $0.02 is to keep it simple.
Look at older standard house shapes. Simple gable is great, cross gable is also very nice. These are layouts that have proven to work, flexible and easily adaptable over time. Try to keep dimensions reasonable so you can clear span without any interior load baring structures or large beams. Stay away from any 1/2 story structure or something with a lot of dormers or roof origami.
Thank yo so much for such a detailed answer. So if I understand correctly the floorplan will need to be to a certain extent adjusted to allocate a properly designed HVAC ducting
The best way is to include ducting as part of your design. Things like basements/crawlspace are good spots for mechanical equipment and ducts. Floor trusses with a duct chase can also help.
With a multi story structure you'll need a service chase up to rest of the floors. This takes up space that must be part of your layout. Good spots are behind fridge/pantry or built in shelving.
No matter how careful of a design you do, you'll end up loosing some floor space to services. Sometimes this can feel like a lot but it is all part of having a properly functioning and comfortable home.
To add on here, I took the (estimated) design cost of my current project from $45,000 down to $4,500 by drawing up my own plan as a starting point. These numbers are for a home that was meant to be built on a $400k budget.
Very significant saving! Is there any problem in the design of the house that you think an architect would have avoided?
Well I designed the house so I don't see any 'problems' haha. It has been my experience that the architects and designers actually added more 'problems' by trying to add embellishments or features that weren't asked for. They move plumbing into outside walls, and make MEP systems more complex. Keep in mind, I'm on a very small budget trying to design a very simple and functional home, so I might not be a great fit for most architects. They seem confused by the project and generally tried to add complexity.
Also be sure to specify your materials and details early on, be clear, and be adamant that whoever you go with sticks to the plan. Everyone around here pushes spray foam, or tries to substitute other expensive options like mineral wool when they hear 'green' when something like cellulose or fiberglass would work just as well.
In other words, my advice would be to make as many decisions as possible before going to a designer to lock down the drawings