house plans?

Will52100

Will52100

Joined
Dec 4, 2001
Messages
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Anybody know of a program to draw up blue prints for a house? Or even a reasonably priced site that will work with you?

With the storms from Rita and Katrina it's hard to get a draftsman to draw what I'm looking for. I don't plan on building till late summer at the earlist but need plans so that the lumber can be drying and I can do the foundation ground work.

Thanks
 
Hey William,

I have a program called "Punch Pro"

It's pretty user friendly and I think I payed $65 at staples or compusa.
 
Hello Will

Are you going to do the work yourself or are you going to use a builder?

If you are going to use a builder, see what sort of plans he has already that are close to what you have in mind. It would likely be less expensive to have the builder build from plans that he is familiar with than from plans drawn up from scratch. From my past experience, it seemed that they would always charge more for a design drawn from scratch to cover themselves in case they run into something that doesn't work out that takes extra time and material to resolve. With the stock designs, the builders are likely to have worked out the bugs and are likely to have found ways to reduce the costs through better use of materials and/or have improved the ease of assembly. For modifications like extending the building by x number of bays, adding an "el" or changing the siding or roofing, they are often able to give reliable estimates instead of having to pick numbers out of the air (with padding). The builder should be able to get the drawings through the approvals process for you with less hassle since they should know what the local planning officials demand.

Good luck.

Phil
 
Thanks guys, I'm going to be doing most of the work myself, including pooring the slab and plumbing and elctricle. I will be hiring contractors to frame up. May have to hire the concreat finishing, that's a lot of work for one man.

Thanks for the program Mark, I'll check it out next time I'm in town. I've got a good idea of what and where, just need to "6 inches longer here for 16 inch spacing and standard 4x8 sheet rock" typ figures.
 
Will

I wish I had the time to build my own house.

You might be able to save some money on the electrical work if you look around your area for some large companies that keep registered electricians on staff to take care of their facilities. The guys where I used to work would do work on the side on evenings and weekends for far less than the normal trade rates. They may also know where to get materials less expensively. Most of them will allow you to work with them as a helper, further reducing the labour charges.

Lastly, see if the company that you work for has an account with an electrical wholesaler and go talk with the guy handling the account. The company that I am working for now buys so much from one wholesaler that the wholesaler has a guy in our office, full time, to take care of our account. A number of us have bought stuff for our own use at at the greatly discounted rate that our employer gets.

Hope that helps.

Phil
 
Will,

Punch pro has a estimator built into the program. Just enter in your local lumber costs and it does the rest.

I'm thinking of building my own house in the near future myself. It has already helped me realize a few errors of my design. One of the cool features is the
3-D walkthrough. It helped me realize my plan made for a direct line-of-site from the master bedroom doorway, right into the toilet in then hallway if the bathroom door was opened :). It has another program which lets you make a mock-up of the house.

It's basically a CAD program.
 
Will,
I wish I could find the one I have
I think one of the boys took it some time back :mad:

it was one I bought at a book store one time on CD, no registering on line and crap just use it
3d layout and cost est. too, basement up
it was called
architecture 2 or 2000, something like that, I'll hunt more for it..
 
I like the steel buildings, was originaly planing on building a steel house, but steel prices today are outrageouse. I'll have to do some cost comparisons though. My father has a woodmizer saw mill so the lumber will be free for the most part. Anouther good thing about living in the country is that I don't need premits and tons of paper work or registered builders.

I'm headed into town tomorrow and will see what's availible in the way of programs, if nothing else it'll give me a price idea to compare against a steel building. I like the idea of a 3D walk through.

Thanks, I realy apreciate it.

Will
 
Well I went by wally world today and they had Punch pro platnum and I picked it up. Looks just like what I was looking for. Now once I get it installed and if I can figure out how to work it I'll be in buisness.:D

Thanks everybody
 
We had looked at steel buildings too. They are (were?) less expensive than a stick-built wood frame. In talking with builders, I was told that the shell of the house typically makes up only about 10% of the total cost of a house. All the stuff that goes into your kitchen and bathrooms make up the largest portions of your cost. Changing the level of trim of your kitchen and bathroom or putting more effort into shopping around to get better prices for the fixtures may give a bigger savings than the savings from a less expensive shell.

I have been working on remodelling our house over the last two years. I was able to buy a lot of the fixtures on-line and got quite significant savings. Some items (kitchen sink, kitchen cabinet doors and ceiling fan) were from on-line stores at about half the normal price. Some (kitchen faucet and range hood) were display models that we bought for between 20% and 30% of the normal retail price. Prowl your local Lowes, Home Depots and Best Buys for appliances that they are clearing out. Let me know if you want the contact details for the suppliers that I have used.

Phil
 
Punch pro is pretty friendly Will. Hey now that you have it, we can e-mail plans back and forth. When you get setup let me know. I'll send you one I've been working on. It's a bit easier to modify that the gynormous houses in the example files they provide.
 
One of the main things I liked best about the heritage steel homes was the open floor plan. You can build any shape/size room you want anywhere or leave an entire space open without having to worry about what that does to your structure and how to support it. Also if you ever decide to remodel you can nock down and rebuild the walls anywhere again without the worry of keeping structural support in the right places. There are alot of possitives to the steel homes for us but they are not for every one. The total cost on the steel home we were going to build was right around $93,000 for 3,000 sqr ft. That included buying the land, having a new water well put in, and hiring out the concrete. If you shop around for materials and dont mind having a preset exterior design steel houses can save you alot of money. My business partner just built a new wood house a little over 4000sqr ft. The basement cost $19,500. Water well $6,500. Septic system $4,800 plus the state requires a $300 dollar inspection fee. Hail resistant shingles w/ 25yr warranty $8,000. The exterior walls(foam board and tyvek wrap only), hang windows and doors, interior support walls, trusses, and roof(decking only), cost about $32,000h(he bought all the materials so there was no mark up from the framer). All the interior walls, stairs, wiring, plumbing, trim, cabinets, and florring he is doing himself. The drywall and hvac system will be hired out. Even though he is doing most of the work his total cost is still going to be over $165,000.
 
sleepy said:
his total cost is still going to be over $165,000.
Click to expand...
man I think you guys get ripped off bad..

about 5 years ago My sister's house burnt and they had to renew.
they bought a Canadian modular home complete for I think it was 67K
it was a last years modle but still it was new.
and the basement was about 8K with 10" walls.
they have well over 3000 feet of living space.

there are deals out there if you look for them.
buying from a lumber outfit doesn't mean you save money, the builder gets the discount not the common Joe normally..so buying the stuff him self just caused him more work and no or little savings and duked the builder out of money (haha I think NOT)
that was probably added on to his labor bill and he had less to do. generally

that's the way it works..I'm not sure where you are but here steel roofing is running about 25% more than shingles with the same warranty..if Bill can get his wood next to free :thumbup: which I think he said that,,

also you can build trusses for open space,, that's what they are for.. just adding my 2 cents :)
 
Deb and I want to build a 1600 sq ft box all on one level, that has a porch on 3 sides. I would imagine since we hope to end up hillside , a walkout basement would be nice. We hope to get the house "in the dry with systems" for under 40K.

While we're dreaming ....

A covered bridge to the hilltop 2400 sq ft shop would be cool too :)
 
You might want to check out http://www.houseplans.com

I haven't really checked their prices, but I assume material lists must be included. I've spend many an hour daydreaming over the plans on this site. Even if their purchased plans don't look like what you want, you'll get lots of ideas.
 
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