Residential Designs

If you have a good eye for what a house should look like, you may have made drawings of your dream home. Alas, when you take these to most builders, they will tell you that they can't use them! In some cases, they will try to get you to choose one of their pre-made designs, while at other contractors, they may tell you that you have to have architectural drawings in order to proceed. Why are these drawings required?

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The point of architectural drafting isn't just to make your drawings look more official. Instead, the real purpose is to plan all of the "under-the-hood" details of the house. For example, an architect's residential designs will include things like how many studs should be behind each wall, how far apart they should be, how many and what kind of fasteners there should be, what the roof pitch needs to be, and where the weight-bearing elements will be. These are aspects that almost no one without architectural training will include in their drawings.

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Even though it is true that professional architectural drafting is needed before builders can start swinging their hammers, there is no need to use a builder's in-house service to get it done. In fact, it is often better to work with an outside company. This is because an outside company isn't trying to maximize the builder's profit or keep construction costs to the bare minimum. Therefore, you'll likely end up with a higher-quality house, and in turn, save money on maintenance and repairs through the years. A house built to strong standards will also have a higher resale value compared to one that is made differently.