Homeowner FAQ'S
Homeowner FAQ Table of Contents
1. Why do I need drawings from you?
2. When would I use your services as opposed to an Architect's?
3. Do you design anything besides custom homes?
4. What do I get in a set of drawings?
5. Don't I also need to have a site plan?
6. How much will this cost me?
7. Wow, that's a lot more than those plan books charge. Why?
10. What sort of information should I get together before our initial meeting?
11. I wish to act as my own General Contractor. Any advice?
12. How long does the design process take?
13. Does a structural engineer need to be involved in my design?
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1. Why do I need drawings from you?
A building permit is required for residential construction. Your city or county permits department will want to see a set of drawings that illustrates exactly what it is that your contractor intends to build, to be sure that it meets current building codes. Our drawings are what you give to them. Our drawings are also what the contractor actually works from when he/she is building your house or addition, after the permit has been issued. During the construction process, various inspectors will visit the job site, and they will reference our drawings as well, and compare them to what the contractor is building.
2. When would I hire a Designer/Drafter as opposed to an Architect?
Many Architects prefer to do only commercial work, or multi-family residential projects (apartment buildings, townhouses, condominiums). The only single-family residential work they're typically interested in would be high-end, high-square footage homes. Architects are much more involved than we are in the selection of the builder, the supervision of the project, and the selection of materials. We typically work with you to design the home, but when it comes to picking out doorknobs or toilets, We leave it to you and the builder.
Please consider an Architect if you:
| Are building a particularly large home (6,000 sq. ft. or higher) | |
| Expect a third party to help you in interviewing and selecting a contractor | |
| Plan to build in this area but don't currently live locally, and need someone to act as your representative for homeowners' associations, builder selection, and permitting | |
| Want the person who designed your home to make site visits during the construction of your home | |
| Need the designer to help you select materials such as floor tiles, cabinets, light fixtures, plumbing fixtures, and doorknobs | |
| Are building something multi-family, or a something partially for commercial use (permits will require an Architect's seal on the drawings) |
Please consider a Residential Designer/Drafter if you:
| Are building a single-family home smaller than 6,000 finished square feet | |
| Feel comfortable with selecting the contractor yourself | |
| Have confidence in the builder doing a good enough job that you don't need the designer "checking up" on him or her | |
| Will work with the builder directly in choosing materials and interior finishes for your home |
We will decline a potential project if we feel you need an architect. Remember, our primary service is to provide you with a detailed, accurate set of plans for a custom home design; these drawings would be the same product you would receive from an Architect. The basic difference is that our services end there, whereas the Architect continues to be involved.
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3. Do you design anything besides custom homes?
Yes. Although the main focus of Fine Line Home Design is custom homes, we also take on some projects such as whole-house renovations, finished basement layouts, additions, in-law suites, attached and detached garages, sunrooms, and various other residential single-family construction projects. Please call or e-mail us with your specific needs and we will be happy to let you know if we can meet them.
4. What do I get in a set of drawings?
The final set of permit/construction drawings contains several basic pages, regardless of the size or style of the house. They are:
| Elevations: the way the home looks from the front, rear, left, and right sides | |
| Floor Plans: the first and second floor plans, showing all dimensions and structural framing information (joist sizes and spacing, beam sizes, etc.) | |
| Foundation Plan: will be either a basement plan, a crawlspace plan, a slab-on-grade plan, or a combination depending on your particular project. | |
| Cross-Section: all sets of plans contain at least one drawing which shows what the structure would look like if you cut through it - joists, beams, sheathing, trusses, etc. are shown in detail. The more complex the structure, the greater the likelihood that the builder would need multiple cross-section drawing sheets to adequately build the house. |
These are the basic sheets that are required by the Frederick County (MD) and Washington County (MD) Permits Departments. There are other sheets that may be done for an additional fee, but are not required for permit. They are:
| Framing Plans: these are floor plans which show every structural member. Each joist, beam, and column is shown. Not required, but suggested for extremely complex structures. (Note: many Virginia counties require framing plans, stamped by a Licensed Structural Engineer, for issuance of a building permit.) On the vast majority of projects, we just include all this information on the floor plans in the form of notes with arrows indicating framing direction. | |
| Electrical Plans: these are floor plans that show the location of all switches, outlets, phone jacks, cable, and light fixtures. In a high-end custom home, where the client has very specific lighting and/or electrical needs, it is helpful to do these drawings. For the "typical" custom home, the homeowner usually just does a walk-through with the electrician at the framing stage, and points out where outlets and switches are desired. | |
| Interior Elevations: if there are built-in cabinets or bookshelves integrated into your home design, we can do special drawings of these pieces of cabinetry. This is generally not necessary because the cabinetmaker will create shop drawings on their own and build from those anyway. Same goes for the kitchen cabinetry. We will work out the kitchen layout as far as counter space, appliance placement, figuring out paths of travel through the kitchen, and window placement, but the kitchen cabinet manufacturer will do detailed shop drawings showing which base cabinets have drawers, lazy susans, trash bins, etc. |
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For new home construction, the site plan is usually prepared by a civil engineering firm. The site plan is also referred to as a "Plat". If you are asking us to do an addition to your home, and can supply us with a copy of your existing site plan (which shows the location of your current house, the property lines, and the building restriction lines), then we can create an Addition Location Plan as part of your permit drawing set for the addition. This will be required by your county's Health Department for permit. It is up to you to obtain your current site plan to give to us to create this Addition Location Plan -- usually you were given a copy of it when you bought your property.
On a related note, before you contact us about designing an addition to your home, please be sure that you are actually allowed to build the addition where you want to build it! Some people believe that they can build an addition right over to their property line; this is not the case. There are building restriction lines inside your property lines (also known as "setbacks"). The distance will vary per the zoning in your area, and this information should be on your existing site plan. Also, if you have a well on your property, measure a 30' radius from it. You are not permitted to build in this area. If you wish to do so, you must have a compelling reason to do so, and must apply for a variance from your county. Please call your local Planning/Zoning Department for more information.
6. How much will this cost me?
All of our work is custom. The plans we create for your home design will not be sold to anyone else; they're for your use only. Therefore, it's not cheap! We like to have an initial meeting with prospective clients to see what their ideas are, and find out their requirements, before we give them a price. Since each project is unique it's impossible for us to give a blanket rate. The price can vary widely depending on style and how much design development will need to be done to create a design they're happy with. We generally charge approximately $1.90 per finished square foot for a set of permit/construction drawings for a custom house, although your particular project may be above or below this price. If you're interested in consulting with us about an addition design, we would need specific information to give you a rate; you may be surprised to know that there's much more involved in creating a set of plans for an addition than just drawing the addition itself. First, we need to take lots of measurements of the existing structure and figure out how it's put together, where the bearing walls/beams are, what the floor joists sizes and directions are, and countless other details. This is because we will need to figure out how to attach existing to new, how to make the addition harmonize with the existing residence both inside and out, and also need to draw as much of the existing structure as is affected by the renovation.
Occasionally we will do work by the hour, if the scope of work isn't concrete enough for us to be able to give you a fixed fee. Our hourly rate is $75.00.
7. Wow, that's more than those plan books charge. Why?
Plan books sell their designs over and over again, to hundreds, if not thousands, of customers all over the country. They make back the money they paid to their designers many times over. When we create your custom home design, we are creating it only for you, tailored to the topographical conditions of your building site, and designed according to local building codes. We won't be making money by selling it to somebody else.
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8. Do you do the plans all at once, or is the project broken down into phases? What about the payments?
The project is broken down into phases. If you ask us to send you a proposal after our initial meeting, we will prepare it with the project schedule that best suits you. We require a retainer and a signed proposal to begin the work. Most projects are completed in the following phases:
| Initial Preliminary Drawings: These will consist of the First Floor Plan, Second Floor Plan (if applicable), and the Front Elevation. Drawings will show overall dimensions of the main rooms, locations of doors, staircases, and windows on the floor plans, and will give you a general idea of where the design is heading. We will present these drawings to you at a design meeting, and we will determine what changes need to be made to the design (at this stage there are ALWAYS changes!) | |
| Revised (Full) Preliminary Drawings: Any changes you made at the last design meeting will be incorporated into the floor plans and the front elevation, plus we will now present to you the Rear and Side Elevations, and the Foundation Plan for review. You will most likely have some ideas for changes at this level of project completion as well. There is usually an additional payment due from you upon completion of this phase. | |
| Pricing Drawings: You will get back all of the above sheets, but this time they will be heavily noted with information the builder will need so that he can provide you with a price. On the elevation sheets we will call out your exterior finishes and your trim sizes. On the floor plans, door and window sizes will be shown, along with beam locations and sizes, and floor joist framing indications. Foundation wall and footing information will designated on the Foundation Plan. This information is crucial for a builder to have in order to give you an estimate for construction. Pricing Drawings are almost always presented to you on vellum, so they can be reproduced, and you can give blueprint sets out to various builders for competitive pricing. A third payment is due from you upon my completion of these drawings. | |
Permit/Construction Drawings: After you've gotten back your prices and selected a builder, you will contact me with any final changes. Depending on the feedback you got from your contractor, you may have decided to make such revisions as reducing the size of the house, eliminating the deck, increasing the ceiling height on the first floor, or making that unfinished basement a finished one after all. We will incorporate these final changes into the drawings, and add other notes which are required for approval by your city or county Permits Department. There will also be at least one Cross-Section drawing, cutting through the house or addition. We will print everything on vellum, and deliver them to you so that you can give them to your builder. Depending on your agreement with the builder, either you or the builder will then apply for the permit with blueprints you've made from the vellums. Back to Top
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9. How do we get started?
Please call 301-416-8499 or e-mail tracy@finelinehomedesign.com to schedule an initial meeting, at no charge or obligation, at our office. If your project is an addition I will need to meet with you at your home so I can see the existing structure. (Note: for additions/renovations more than 30 miles from my office in downtown Hagerstown, I will need to charge you for travel time at $75.00/hour.) New home construction projects are more easily discussed at a meeting in our office, so that we have all our reference materials and example drawings of past projects handy.
10. What sort of information should I get together before our initial meeting?
It's helpful if you make a list of what rooms you need in your new house, and any minimum sizes. An idea of your overall square footage requirements is also helpful. Many clients drive around and take pictures of homes they've seen that they like; sometimes they like the windows of one house, but the porch columns of another, and the rooflines of a third. This is all beneficial to us - We try to incorporate all of it into the custom design. If you have very specific ideas of what you want, and have some experience with design, you might want to get out some graph paper and do some preliminary sketching on your own. We have prepared a list of Design Decisions which we encourage you to consider before our first meeting. Initial meetings usually last a minimum of 90 minutes, so plan accordingly.
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11. I wish to act as my own General Contractor. Any advice?
Very few people should even consider this! The money you think you'll save being your own GC will most likely be eaten up in problems you'll encounter during construction -- problems that a qualified builder has the expertise to foresee. There are so many decisions to be made by the contractor, so many issues and questions that may arise, that you wouldn't even conceive of them until they're staring you in the face and holding up the project. Homeowners who think it's just a matter of making a few calls and lining up subcontractors invariably end up regretting their decision to not have a builder at the helm of their project. There are many tradespeople whose schedules you will need to coordinate in the process of getting your job done; most likely at least one of them will not show up when you think they will, and then everybody's schedules will be thrown off. A subcontractor may not feel the loyalty to you, the one-job homeowner, that he feels to his repeat contractor clients, and if one of his regular clients has an emergency job he will most likely put you on the back burner. Please don't let your hours of watching HGTV give you false confidence that you will be able to construct a problem-free sunroom or master site addition to your home - remember that they edit out the problems on their shows!
"When one has finished building one's house, one suddenly realizes that in the process one has learned something that one really needed to know in the worst way - before one began" -- Nietzsche
Some homeowners with little or no experience who think they can save money by acting as their own GC's want to use us as their "safety net", calling us for advice during construction. While we would to help everyone as much as we can, we simply cannot take the time out from our drafting to act as their construction monitor. Also, we are not builders and often we don't have the answers they're looking for. We have designed and drawn plans for hundreds of homes since 1992, and even with our experience would never think of acting as our own General Contractor.
Of course, many homeowners who have extensive construction experience will do just fine acting as their own GC's. I'd be happy to work with these people in putting together a design. Expect lots of questions from us before we agree to take on your project, though. We will not get involved unless we feel confident of your ability to successfully manage it yourself.
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12. How long does the design process take?
Once we receive your retainer and a copy of your signed proposal, we will present the Initial Preliminary Drawings to you in approximately two to three weeks. You can give us your feedback right away, or take a set home with you to ponder for as long as you need. Once you get back to us with any changes, allow another two to three weeks (depending on our workload at the time) for us to incorporate your revisions and present the Full Preliminary Drawings to you. Again you can give us immediate feedback or take the drawings with you to review at home. Allow about two weeks after you give us the go-ahead to complete the Pricing Drawings. Now, once you have the Pricing Drawing vellums and you start contacting builders about giving you some prices on your project, you need to be prepared to wait at least several weeks (or months!) for them to get their bids back to you. Preparing an estimate takes a contractor a lot of time, and there are many subcontractors involved. Don't be surprised if you have to call a builder several times before you finally get a callback. Interest rates are low, and the good builders are inundated with calls about new work. When you've finally gotten a price from a contractor and are ready for us to complete the plans into the Permit/Construction Drawings, we will need about two more weeks after your call to wrap up the project.
So, you can see that the total time you will be waiting for us to present something to you will be at least two months or so, conservatively speaking. There's always a chance that we could complete one or more phases in less time, depending on our backlog at that particular moment. The amount of time you spend mulling over our drawings, and the amount of time it will take the builder to get a price to you, are factors that can't be overlooked. Best case scenario, allow three to four months from the time you send us a signed proposal to the moment we give you the final Permit/Construction Drawings. We have had drawings for simple addition projects take 1-1/2 years, due to homeowner indecision; but then we have also completed custom home designs for decisive people who already had a builder lined up, and for whom budget was no issue, within seven weeks.
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13. Does a structural engineer need to be involved in my project?
It depends on the complexity of your project, and where your property is. If the project is in Washington County (MD) or Jefferson County (WV), and there are any beams in the framing of your project (steel or engineered lumber), then the Permits Departments of those counties have a special requirement. A structural engineer must review our drawings to verify that the beam and column size(s) we have called out are structurally adequate; then he/she writes an official letter certifying the structural integrity of those members, and sends that letter to you (with a copy to us for our records). You then give that letter to the county Permits Department along with the final drawings. It's not a big deal. We have relationships with a couple of local engineers, and we are happy to coordinate the review/certification process with them. Keep in mind, though, that they are not part of our company, and they will send you an invoice for their time, separate from our fee. Final selection of engineer is at your discretion, so if you have someone else you'd like us to work with other than the usual professionals we contact, that's fine.
Some counties in Virginia require that a structural engineer review everything on the drawings (footing sizes, foundation wall thicknesses, column sizes, joist spacing, etc.). They then put their professional seal on a few sets of blueprints before the client submits for his permit.
If you live in a county that does not require a structural engineer to be involved in the project, and we feel that the job is straightforward enough that we can size the beams, joists, columns, etc. on our own, then there's no need to coordinate with one. We will tell you if we don't feel comfortable sizing the structural members, and think that the project needs to be reviewed by an engineer. Better to have a complicated project approved by the engineer before the plans are completed, than to have a plan reviewer at the Permits Dept. call you while he's reviewing your drawings and tell you he won't issue the permit until you pay to have an engineer review everything and write a letter.
Lastly, there are certain types of jobs where a structural engineer's involvement is mandatory. If you want any of these things in your project, budget for an engineer's time:
| An "elevated slab" (storage space underneath of a garage slab or a concrete porch slab) | |
| Excessive cantilevers | |
| Using brick or stone on the outside of a house where it's not supported directly beneath by walls (for example, if you want the second floor outside walls to be inset from the first floor, with a bit of roof in front of the second floor walls, then the brick or stone on those second floor walls needs to be supported by beams in the first floor ceiling. This can get a little complicated.) | |
| A concrete slab that's not going to be totally supported by undisturbed earth -- this requires the construction of concrete grade beams in the slab. | |
| Conventionally framed roof with cathedral ceilings, where a ridge beam will need to be sized. |
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Fine Line Home Design, LLC 115 South Potomac Street - 2nd Floor Hagerstown, MD 21740 Phone: 301.416.8499 Fax: 301.733.8050