I am planning on having a small (12x15) addition built on to the back of my
house that will slightly enlarge the kitchen and give us an upstairs walk-in
closet and laundry room. The contractor (who is the same person who built my
garage and whom I trust completely) will be building the shell and only
finishing it enough inside and out to get the occupancy permit. We will then
handle the kitchen and bathroom remodeling. When we first started considering
the addition (almost a year ago), we hired the same architect who designed our
garage to draw up preliminary sketches for the addition. We went through
several iterations and finally settled on a design, which is what we used to
get the rough costs for construction. The plans are not enough to actually
use for a permit or to guide construction, which is what brings me to my
question.
We paid the architect (actually, the company he worked for at the time) around
$2300 for the initial design work, which I think was about what the total
garage plans cost us 5 years ago. Now that we are ready to go ahead, he has
given us an estimate for finishing the job and preparing the final plans.
(For what its worth, he got laid off of his previous job and is now working on
his own.) He estimates that preparing the construction documents will take 28
to 34 hours at a cost of $85/hour, for a total of $2380-$2890. We would then
be charged an additional $85/hour for any time he needs to spend on the site,
working with the contractor on any issues that may come up once they start to
take down the back wall.
The sum total of my experience with architects is the experience with this guy
when he designed our garage, so the only comparison I have is what he charged
us to design the garage. On the positive side, he and our contractor have
worked together before (the contractor is actually the one who recommended him
in the first place) and we were happy with his work on the garage and the
initial design of the addition. On the other hand, he will have charged us
over $5,000 for designing and spec'ing a 12x15 two story addition that doesn't
include any interior design. To those of you who know, does this seem high?
I don't mind paying a little extra just for the fact that he and the
contractor work together well, but I don't want to be funding this guy's
unemployment either.
Thanks.
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