What Affects House Extension Drawings Cost?

 

The factors affecting house extension drawings costs are whether the extension is being built as a Permitted Development or via Planning Permission and whether the drawings are produced by an architect or architectural designer. According to architectureforlondon.com April 2018, an architect would typically charge about 3.5% of the overall build costs to produce planning drawings, so for a £50,000 extension you would be paying an architect about £1500-£2000 whereas an architectural designer such as My Home Plans UK charges less than 1/3^rd of that. If you don’t need an architect to produce your drawings, using an architectural designer can save you money and can provide a better solution.

Do I need an architect to design my extension?

This depends on how complex your concept is and whether you want a particular design style that requires architectural creativity and experience. For most Permitted Development extensions clients can get a better service and save a lot of money by hiring an architectural designer instead of an architect, as the scope of these projects is confined by Permitted Development regulations. For example, a Permitted Development extension has to be a certain size, shape, height and take on the appearance of the house, so there is no option to design bespoke architectural features.

 

What is the difference between an Architect and an Architectural Designer?

An architect covers many technical and academic elements of a building project spanning the following at various depths: design concept, interior design, planning regulations, construction drawings, building regulations management and plans, construction project management and structural design. An architectural designer however has a much narrower scope, focusing on building layouts and the planning process. Whereas many architects use traditional paper-based drawings to convey their designs to clients, Architectural designers are more likely to be CAD software technicians using virtual reality (VR) 3D models to design buildings. VR can prove to be a major benefit as the client can look round the house in VR before it’s been built, which helps them make better decisions (e.g. window and door positions, kitchen and bathroom layouts etc) during the design phase instead of during the build phase which adds extra cost, causes delays and often delivers compromised end results.

 

What if the builder needs structural design for foundations, roof modifications or knocking through supporting walls?

Good architectural designers work with architects, structural engineers and planning consultants to provide additional services as and when a project will benefit from this expertise and the extra expense is required. It is worth checking this at the outset as you don’t want to save money by working with an architectural designer only to discover at a later stage that you need to hire a separate architect or structural engineer who will start from scratch.