Please help us locate a houseplan for waterfront. Do you know of any unusual websites or catalogs we can look in? |
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What's so special about a waterfront plan?
I'm sorry, I thought you wanted it done the right way.
never lived on the water, have you?
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
I had a water leak that flooded the carpet once. Does that count?
My point was ... what details was she looking for that could not be found in a stock plan (with adequate seach time), or even better ... use a local designer. In the other thread she mentioned that hubby builds houses in Atlanta. I am surprised that he hasn't learned the pitfalls of trying to modify stock plans vs hiring a designer up front.
I'm sorry, I thought you wanted it done the right way.
That comment makes me remember all the posts we have read here about the poor quality of building in general in the Atlanta area. possible he is blissfully ignorant
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Mommy,
the answer is still the same aas yesterday.
There are a multitude of problems with most stock floorplans, The problems are magnified with waterfront property or any other special sites. The first rule of design is to make it fit the site. So a stock plan cannot ever be more than about 60% good for a site.
Then there is the problem of permit approval that you already know about. Florida will require a local archy top stamp the plans. To get one to do that, he will have to spend as much time reviewing and studying what you buy to do it with integrity as he would spend in actually throwing his own design togehter if there are not too many weird details. of courtse, you could always hire one with little integrity ( is that like being a little bit pregnant - having a little lack of ethics? )
The stories I have heard and read of folks who feel screwed over after spending more for archy stamping than for the stock plans are mind numbing.
And with a real archy, you get good advise and hand holding.
One reason so much time is involved in reviewing a stock plan from somebody else, is that most of them are drawn by the young ones, often without a license or a practice. They have good ideas, but often have little or no real world homebuilding experience, so the errors and omissions are so abundant you could stack them like firewood. You won't really need much firewood down on the beach now will you?
Welcome to the
Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!
I could be wrong, but I think I've been to her part of Florida, and it may be nothing like you think it is.
It's a long long drive up the peninsula, if you begin down around Lauderdale or even Naples, leaving civilization a little north of Tampa, then passing after a long drive through scrub and some prison towns, through huge areas of swampland, then timber, cross the Suwanee, down which all the heart longleaf pine logs floated 100 years ago, up around the curve toward the panhandle, and you are getting there. Boca Raton and Naples probably seem like places on another planet.
Seemed to me like I was looking at less-than-sophisticated building jurisdictions. Gene Davis, Davis Housewrights, Inc., Lake Placid, NY
Mommy,
Rather than start a new thread, just keep track of your old one:
http://forums.taunton.com/tp-breaktime/messages?msg=58388.24
Dear aimless(to mean "without purpose"-name fits),
I'm sorry to have inconvenienced you for your help. You obviously have had a bad day...life, whatever... This is my first time to this forum and felt there might be "someone" with heart to help me out. I am not an architect/designer, just someone trying to get "professional advice" on locating a homeplan for my family. Fortunately, there are people with Heart that have answered my questions, but others (as yourself) seem as if they have been "forced" to help me out. Sorry to have "wasted" your time. I am signing out as of today.....I will take the advice of all.....thank you all for your time and professional advice. I am actually quite amazed at how many of you are such sweet, giving, considerate people. God will bless you for your charitable work, I am certain. In the meantime, I will pray for peace in the hearts of those who are restless............Thank you so for your time.....May the Lord bless and keep each one of you close....
Mommyx4
????? Mommy, I wasn't trying to pizz you off, honest. I just thought maybe you lost track of the old one and so started a new thread.
Sorry you think I'm heartless, I was just trying to help you out a little by posting the link to the old one. My heartfelt apologies (I do have one) for offending you, though I'm not sure how I managed it so easily.
"I'm sorry to have inconvenienced you for your help. You obviously have had a bad day...life, whatever... This is my first time to this forum and felt there might be "someone" with heart to help me out. I am not an architect/designer, just someone trying to get "professional advice" on locating a homeplan for my family. "
My advice is to find a local architect and ask them to draw you plans. You'll save money in the long run. Architects aren't all expensive and if you are upfront about it, you can get plans with minimal detailing similar to what you get with stock plans, but with a house that really fits YOUR needs.
Hmm. You pose a conundrum. Waterfronts are all unique, so are the design approaches to each. Complicating that is that every waterfront seems to suffer under a different flurry of regulations.
You would not want a lot of south-facing windows, even with excellent ocean views, along the Texas coast--but you might on the Maine coast. In the Pacific NW, there'd be an entirely different answer. Each could still 'embrace' the desireable views, but each would need a different architctural solution. Reworking a plan for one to another would be almost the overhead of starting from scratch. With the added detriment of having to go to great effort and misery to "keep" from changing as much as possible.
All this, before, well before, the changes local, state, and federal authorities will require for compliance. The gulf bend of florida will not need the seismic design of the pacific coast--but it might have to meet Dade Co hurricane rules, which a house in Corpus Christi might not.
I'll admit that I won't design plans "on spec" for waterfront locations, just because I've never found one that survived actual siting.
In point of fact I charge double normal rates to redraw stock plans. This is from expereince, going back over the projects, I usually have double the hours in them as "from scratch." For projects on or near water it's 2.5x normal rates (and another .5x for every "other" jurisidction having authority)--these are all hard-learned business decisions, not some avarice or caprice.
That being said, 20% seems a tad high, unless that includes all the engineering too.
I thought that rate sounded high too, but after watching Mommy ignore good advice and keep on soliciting advise that is only what she wants to hear, regaradless of whether it is good or not, and then to insult aimless after being given a simple suggestion how to efficiently navigate the forum, I see signs that she could be the sort of difficult customer who deserves a high rate, because her demeanor demands it.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Someone saying that all they can find is 20%, when all I hear for FL is the number of architects working for $1.25/ft or less...yeah, it's hard to bridge that chasm. Add in the inappropriate reaction to Amy, and perhaps mommy is catching the "I hope I won't be hired" surcharge.
to insult aimless
That one rather took my breath away. Mx4 is new, obviously, but one should be rather carefull of whom one takes potshots "at" . . .
Now, I could almost understand what happened to Mx4; she was a newbie, so the post did not appear; the second title was actually more informative than the first. No excuse for boorish behaviour, though.
I see signs that she could be the sort of difficult customer who deserves a high rate
Well, yes, quite.
Oh, we've started construction work without you; can you help us, we might could go as high as 5%--do you have a stock plan you can give us cheap?
Gee, I'm not sure how I'd approach that. (Fixed fee + $ for over xx hours, maybe--but, that'd be treading on being "aforethought" <g>.)
After thinking about it--any professional coming into this bad boy may wind up in the middle of various uh-ohs, like improperly or incompletely permited demolition work. The big giant looming uh-oh of "losing" location by demolition of existing structure is not one I'd tangle up in from get-go (I've done enough lake & navigable waterway work to have learned to be some cautious).
The siting for this beast could be a right bear. Depending on exactly where on the middle gulf coast of the sunshine state we are speaking, there's all sorts of considerations. Well beyond mere due dilligence for a "stock plan." One wrong detail on a southern exposure facing the sea, and it molds--that lawsuit would eat any imaginable profits alone.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
And even archies can make mistakes by listenning too well to what the client says. I know of a house here where the owners demanded plenty of glass in the water side. So they got this three story house with a 2/3 glass wall facing the water - which happens to be SW. Starting about 2PM, with sun coming straight in and reflecting off the water it turned into a solar oven. Work crews were using tarps as curtains to keep from working at 110°F upstairs in Late winter. it cost another hundreedd thousand to do awnings, curtains, shutters, and AC all on timers and thermostats to make the place livable.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
But, it's so spectacular with a 50% overcast at sundown, though . . .
Can't imagine that vista of glass is very comfortable to be near in a nor'easter, either.
Which would be the worst case of all--uncomfortable in good weather or bad.
Which makes me think of Jeremiah Eck's article in the current issue--it's good advice, but really only for his latitude.
(The solar angles for my latittude are 30º north of east & west for summer solstice, and peak angles of 89º and 67º--not ideal for southern glass exposures)Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
One of the features I like in VectorWorks is their solar animations. For any day of the year I can create an animation showing the shadows on a building for all daylight hours. Makes it easy to spot vulnerabilities and size overhangs.
VectorWorks is their solar animations
Yeah, that's a cool thing. I've used Accurender to do animated sun studies--which sometimes has been better.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Cool! You just sitre the house, enter lattitude, and date and time of day????I can place a light to stream in, but just guess wheree to place it for renderings with SP
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Time of day is automatically cycled through all daylight hours for the given day. Interface makes it more awkward than it needs to be, but that's essentially it. Creates a QuickTime movie.
only to see featureless everywhere...
It faces SW, halfway down the hill so the nor'eaters don't bother that one.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!