change in plans

Started by tnmtnflower, May 05, 2006, 12:30:16 PM

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tnmtnflower

hello, i bought plans for the grandfather cottage last fall. i took the plans to the local lowe's for a materials list, but was told i needed to go back to the architect to redraw the plans with changes i would like. specifically, it will need different roof trusses to allow for a finished attic, (i think) and for the bathroom to be at the other end of the house, near the master bedroom, moving the second bedroom next to the kitchen.

what is the simplest, least costly way to accomplish getting the changes made and getting the ever ellusive materials list?

thanks, gaynell

John Raabe

#1
If you are just planning to make changes to the trusses you may be able to have this done by the truss company (for free). Don't expect a big box retailer to help you much with this. Call the truss company directly and they can probably work up the engineering needed from your notes on the plans. It would be worth a visit with their engineer to find out. They will provide engineered drawings (of the truss work) on site for the inspector as part of the truss package.

Also, if you have a local builders lumber yard they will often do a materials takeoff for you. And you don't really need to get every stick figured out before you start as this is a waste of time. You wouldn't want it to come all at one time anyway. That's why a real lumberyard is great - you call them up every few days and they deliver the next phase of materials. Put it on your account and they will do all the tracking for you.

If there are more involved plan changes than just the trusses, contact a local building designer for modifications. If your Bldg Dept. requires structural engineering you can have the engineer do this as well.

In addition, I'm planning to get the Grandfather files uploaded to PlanHelp.com so that folks with the $6 program 3D Home Architect can download the plans and make modifications such as you are trying to do. Check HERE to see if these plans are on the list. If so this could save you a lot of money as you could just print out your floorplan to scale and paste it into your master set.
None of us are as smart as all of us.


tnmtnflower

thank you for your quick and informative reply.

unfortunately, having a new lowe's in town means that both of our local lumberyards are shutting down soon.

i'll call around and see who i can find. that plan download would be of great help. thank you!

Amanda_931

#3
At 50 miles away from each of the two nearest Lowes, we have one lumberyard and one hardware store that are still going.  I'm kind of bad about heading to one of the big box stores, when, especially given the price of gas, the local guys are going to be cheaper.  Not true if you've got Lowe's right in town.

Guy up at the neighboring county's hardward store said once that he had no problems at all keeping up with Lowe's prices--at that stage, gas prices or no gas prices.  It was the overwhelming numbers of things that they had to offer that got to him.

(he's probably 20 miles closer to one of the Lowes.)

So if your guys don't just decide to roll over and die on you, they may keep going fairly well.

Or they could be like the old boy I met once who was going to give away all his expensive type tire-changing equipment because the weights were going to be metric soon.  I swear it was the weights, not the wheels.  Don't make much difference though, the equipment wouldn't change if you could deal with 12" to 16" wheels with different center sizes.  And wheel weights were kind of an art not a science, even with the machines that told you what to put on.  (One of my millions of odd jobs--did that for a year part time)

In addition, things like metal roofing and half a ton of sand are probably best bought locally from someone who can deliver.  They'll probably buy from closer, and what you really really don't want to do is buy one or two pieces of metal roofing from out of the rack at the big box places.

Also there is a draftsman in the next county over who seems to be well up on how to build what.  Especially since that county--and our area--seems to have just lost our structural engineer.  Which reminds me, I need to make an appointment with him.

John Raabe

I've just uploaded two versions of the one story Grandfather/Volks houses. These are in 3DHA v3 format

3DHA Plans at PlanHelp
None of us are as smart as all of us.


tnmtnflower

thank you! this is very helpful.

pforden

Gaynell,
We bought the Grandfather Cottage also. We are a few weeks away from needing to work with the lumberyard, etc., in our area (outside of Austin, Tex.) We subscribed to the PlanHelp.com site and hope to lay out our electrical service and generate a materials list from the download of the Grandfather Cottage template and the purchase of the 3D Home Architect on ebay this evening.

I'm excited to meet someone else who is working on this plan the same time we are. I hope we can support one another as we go along.

Penny [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

pforden

We bought the 3DHA on ebay for pretty much nothing (I think $10) and it arrived quickly. This morning I downloaded the Grandfather Cottage plans, generated the materials list, took a look at the options, and for the first time I see what we are doing. We are going to send the plans on to our potential construction consultant to see what kind of changes will be necessary to adapt to the FasWall construction. If it is too expensive or extensive, we will fall back on our original frame house idea. But we are hopeful that the faswall construction will be possible and economical for us.

Penny