BEFORE THE ARCHITECT – BLUEPRINT DESIGN CONSULTANTS
SECOND OPINION – STOCK HOUSE DESIGN PLANS & HOUSE DESIGN BLUEPRINTS
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Here comes a quickie review of stock house design plans in the form of an owner-purchased set of house design blueprints. Stock house design blueprints' reviews take about as long as they have to depending on a couple of major moments —
What clients want reviewed and changed.
The shape of the house design plans when we get them — often pretty shabby.
Counting time to review, analyze, question, answer, and compose a written summary, that's most often about 10 hours at least.
Before The Architect regularly reviews house design plans of others. As for changes alone, one set recently crossed our doorstep with just six points of client interest and inquiry while another one earlier this year involved changes covering 18 typed pages, 10-point font, single spaced, narrow margins. Yep, 18 pages. Single-spaced. 10 point.
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Folks in the very upper Midwest bought the set in this case study from a plan farm in the Northeast in order to build with 'em way down south. They stopped by Before The Architect for a second opinion checkup. They showed us as full a set of drawings as you get these days, and these folks shelled out big money. You know, lots of plan views and elevations and some sections and a few details and fewer notes.
In reviewing these plans, the AG first got a good sense of where the owners were headed with interior and exterior modifications. Where. And why, because it's the "why" that speaks to function from which form – structure and aesthetics – will flow.
The elemental problem with these plans was that they were old. How old? Before Tyvek old. Demanding #1 or better framing lumber old. And they were missing a thing or two. Missing what? Missing all the floor joist beaming. And they were wrong? Yep. Wrong. They were wrong about dimensions for windows — each time by about a half-foot in width and about a half-foot in length. They were also wrong because some of the scheduled windows aren't made anymore. Those kinds of wrong. Lots of abbreviations, too . . . . no legend. Even the Autocad Granddad got stumped on one or two cryptics.
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This is what we wrote in our quickie review.
Dear X and Y,
Before The Architect has summarily reviewed the plans you sent.
In general, the residential building plans – single story and basement – appear adequate for many aspects of construction, (noting that subordinate plans for mechanicals and such are thin or absent), and they appear amenable to the plan modifications which we have discussed without really major reworking of the sheets as presented. Those are our preliminary opinions.
It is our working assumption that all matters which we have discussed so far as plan modifications can be managed simply with supplemental drawings and notes, including not only interior changes, but also exterior changes or house additions. In other words, sparing any significant alterations to drafted structure, these plans might be submitted as amended, subject to thorough vetting of the numbered points of concern below identified for your immediate attention. We have inquired of that county's building authority having jurisdiction as to this view for their reaction, but have not heard back yet. This supplemental, as-amended route would save you substantial time and money.
Without leaving on that money clock for several more hours to allay some concerns, the prints are at least in one important area – floor structure – unclear as to many specifications, and in at least a couple other areas – window specs, house wrap, foundation drainage, etc. — they appear to be inadequate or misleading. Concerns here are not numerous, and range from mundane to mandatory. In all cases noted so far, remediation of these concerns would not be a big deal during construction.
Before The Architect will dwell momentarily on the negatives rather than the positives. The latter almost always take care of themselves with disregard, while the former confront and torment. No matter your future course with these plans and with Before The Architect, we urgently encourage you to focus on at least these ten points that have taken our immediate attention:
Secure adequate finished height in the basement, i.e., minimum 8'-0" clear. It's 7'-4" roughed as drawn.
Beef up the master area floor structure, including the new master bath area. While technically within common code tolerances as drawn, the numbers are at the brink of stepping up; your floor in that area will be soft if built as drawn, even before you alter the use of that main floor level space.
Beef up all interior subfloors. As drafted, they're only 5/8" ply, not 3/4" tongue and groove as subfloor for your hardwood finishes.
Consider footing drains mandatory, not optional as noted in the drawings.
Pour the concrete basement floor, walks, and driveway on sand, not gravel, no matter who's ox is gored. Gravel is ok as a substrate to the sand, but on its own it won't let the concrete creep over significantly expansive soil characteristic of the area of your building site. It's minimum 2" sand over water impermeable membrane over minimum 4" tamped stone over tamped earth. Nothing less.
Make absolutely sure that your rafter bays and attics are adequately vented. On this point, our doubts are on the increase, and it's usually not a slam-dunk issue for rapid resolution, particularly for your cathedral bays. Just for starters, the upper end of the passive venting overall appears too limited in size and site.
Encase the exterior wall sheathing in a house wrap, not felt as drafted.
Carefully assess structural adequacy relative to current, common standards. These are not new plans (my bet is that they're better than 30 years old), and seem to be out-coded.
Carefully assess specifications relative to current availability, e.g., for windows. These are not new plans, and at least two specified window models are no longer in production, other window dimensions are way off between specifications and framing draftings.
Assess lumber grades as to expense and availability, given that the builder notes specify #1 or better — grades not readily acquired for whole-house construction anymore.
Before The Architect is ready, willing, and able to address further these issues at your convenience.
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(If this is your first visit to Before The Architect, please consider spending a few moments looking over the Site Map, in order to get a feel for the architecture of the site itself.)