Building Regs Drawings

[Coops]

Hi Folks 

 

Just been quoted £1850 for a building regs drawings. The project is a fairly simple 5x8 ground floor flat roof rear extension. Project is in Shropshire, quote includes;

 

1. Measuredsurvey
2. Preparation of existing drawing
3. Preparation of detailed drawing
4. Schedule of Works
5. Building Regulations application.

 

Sample drawings do look useful and clear but this sounds a lot to me, anyone got any thoughts?

 

 

Edited July 4, 2020 by Coops

[Mr Punter]

Sounds OK to me.  Maybe get a couple of other quotes?

 

I have a quote of £6,350 for detailed design for 3 flats which works out at £36 per metre.

[PeterW]

Any steelwork or Structural engineering required..?

 

Does the application include the BRegs fees ..? 

[Coops]

Hi Peter.

 

Council app fees excluded as are structural calcs, but yes, steel will be needed.

[DevilDamo]

That sounds about right to me. You mention it seems a lot but a lot compared to what? Just bear in mind the build cost could be in the region of £40k so the fees quoted are only 4.6% of the build cost.

 

Are any Planning drawings/applications required... PD or PP?

[Coops]

PD...just seemed expensive for a few drawing sheets and spec, 70% of which will likely be generic cut and paste.

[PeterW]

30 minutes ago, Coops said:

Hi Peter.

 

Council app fees excluded as are structural calcs, but yes, steel will be needed.

OK - assuming this is a rectangular box going on the back of an ordinary detached house, and there is a single knock through (??) and it is of standard construction with no unusual quirks such as corner glazing or full width bifolds.?

 

If so, why the drawings..?? If you are going with a main contractor then tbh a standard plan and elevation annotated with the standard details would be fine, and I would even go with a building notice instead of plans and let the contractor crack on with it. 
 

Standard Details

Edited July 4, 2020 by PeterW
Missing URL

[Coops]

13 minutes ago, PeterW said:

OK - assuming this is a rectangular box going on the back of an ordinary detached house, and there is a single knock through (??) and it is of standard construction with no unusual quirks such as corner glazing or full width bifolds.?

 

If so, why the drawings..?? If you are going with a main contractor then tbh a standard plan and elevation annotated with the standard details would be fine, and I would even go with a building notice instead of plans and let the contractor crack on with it. 
 

Standard Details

Yeah, I've considered this route, but the only problem I can see is getting accurate tenders for the build.

[PeterW]

Are you looking for a turnkey solution then ..?

 

If so, get the contractor to quote for the lot including the drawings - many will have a preferred SE or AT they use, and will happily work off basic plans to start with. 
 

If it’s PD I’m assuming you’re using the neighbour approval system ..?

[DevilDamo]

39 minutes ago, Coops said:

PD...just seemed expensive for a few drawing sheets and spec, 70% of which will likely be generic cut and paste.

But again, what are you comparing this to? How do you know how much time it’ll take to produce these ‘few drawing sheets and spec”? Bear in mind the design and detail is taken on by somebody who is qualified and proficient at doing so and will therefore take on the design risks associated with the works should any issues arise during or post completion.

 

In order to obtain accurate build costs, you’ll need to provide contractors with full plans drawings including engineers’ details and calculations. Although a BN application wouldn’t normally need to include as much detail, contractors may not be comparing apples with applies and therefore deviating from what could be BR complaint.

 

You can’t have the best of both worlds.

[Coops]

Neighbour consult process yes..for the build, in the interest of speed and cost certainty, I'd like a contractor to produce the shell, alternatively with the security of some decent working drawings I could do it myself, although I'd like to actually enjoy living in it rather than slog away for years.

[nod]

For something like an extension there are quite a few people who advertise plans drawn You may be able to cut yours down to about 500 But you would have the submission fees on top of this 

[joe90]

For a loft conversion I did years ago I did my own drawings taking details from two different other loft conversions where I borrowed their plans. The BI was intrigued as he said plans were like a finger print (back in the day) and they could recognise the architect By the drawings, when I told him what I did he was well impressed and it all passed.

[Coops]

1 hour ago, DevilDamo said:

But again, what are you comparing this to? How do you know how much time it’ll take to produce these ‘few drawing sheets and spec”? Bear in mind the design and detail is taken on by somebody who is qualified and proficient at doing so and will therefore take on the design risks associated with the works should any issues arise during or post completion.

 

In order to obtain accurate build costs, you’ll need to provide contractors with full plans drawings including engineers’ details and calculations. Although a BN application wouldn’t normally need to include as much detail, contractors may not be comparing apples with applies and therefore deviating from what could be BR complaint.

 

You can’t have the best of both worlds.

Fair point, just trying to cut a few corners to maximise build costs 

[Russell griffiths]

If it’s nothing complicated find a local architectural technician, I paid £20 per hour. 

[the_r_sole]

Sounds way less than we'd charge for building regs drawings, never mind a schedule of works and a survey...

If the guy is competent, I'd say go for it 

[Timedout]

And what level of responsibility are your expecting this person to adopt?  You want this person to come to site, measure, draw, design, specify works and prepare documents for building control and tendering plus accept design responsibilities.  Presumably someone with a cognate degree, membership of a professional body and professional indemnity insurance.  

[Coops]

12 hours ago, Timedout said:

And what level of responsibility are your expecting this person to adopt?  You want this person to come to site, measure, draw, design, specify works and prepare documents for building control and tendering plus accept design responsibilities.  Presumably someone with a cognate degree, membership of a professional body and professional indemnity insurance.  

No, all supervision excluded.

[Coops]

17 hours ago, Russell griffiths said:

If it’s nothing complicated find a local architectural technician, I paid £20 per hour. 

Yeah, that's what I need, CAD technicians like hen's teeth though.

[Mr Punter]

Looking back I see we paid another architect £37,900 for detail design of a project of 1180m2, so £32 per metre.  That project was also quite complicated.

[Timedout]

7 hours ago, Coops said:

No, all supervision excluded.

I didn’t mention supervision. That comes during the construction phase.

[mr rusty]

Quote

In order to obtain accurate build costs, you’ll need to provide contractors with full plans drawings including engineers’ details and calculations

 

Well, for a similar single story extension I found a local builder I trusted, with a good relationship with BC and just told him what I wanted and asked him to design and build on a building notice. Builder built - I was around and we talked through a few details as it went along, BCO inspected, everything was exactly as I wanted. Not a single plan was drawn by anybody except a few concept sketches by me. It was very straightforward. We reused bricks taken down from the knock-through so it matched the rest of house, steel beam calcs were done using an online calculator, but BCO never even asked for them, just looked at the steel and signed it off. It can be done if there is trust all round. However, agree not always possible.

[MJNewton]

We paid £300 to an Architectural Technician for a consultation and BR drawings for a fairly conventional 4.5m x 3m single-storey extension with knock-through, nearly-full-width sliding doors, flat roof and lantern. He specified the construction methods, insulation types, door lintel etc and did the calcs for the knockthrough beams. With such a simple design there was evidently limited need for original contents and so it was likely all a copy-and-paste from previous work and experience but even so we felt it very good value for money, and I did wonder how he even broke even given the the time to produce the drawings, answering questions and tweaking things for us. A bit slow mind; perhaps that's the price we paid, but we weren't in a rush and he was a nice chap which counts a lot for me. No BR application (I did that; £450) and the schedule of works was handled by the builder.

 

Whilst the drawings were arguably not essential, we liked having them and all the builders providing quotes seemed to appreciate them too as it remove any ambiguity about what we wanted and were expecting. One also said it helped demonstrate commitment and that we weren't just kicking tyres like many do.

Edited September 18, 2020 by MJNewton