Architectural service

Hello everyone,

and in several respects at once, since I am quite new to the forum.

I am in the process of converting a former barn building (small windows out, floor-to-ceiling windows in; gates on the upper floor out, also windows in instead, reroofing and insulating the roof, making a breakthrough for a door). For this, I have now received a fee offer from the architect:

- Preparing the building application with description and construction figures, as well as the property map for 1,180 EUR net I accept
- plus 5% incidental costs (for copies, plotting, phone calls, etc.) for 196.65 EUR net I find already quite a lot, but okay, maybe they print on gold paper...

what really makes me think is the item
Transfer to CAD
3 floor plans, section and elevations
approx. 24 hours of a technical employee
approx. 8 hours of an architect

I am very IT-savvy and also quite familiar with software. If I enter the floor plans of the building into one of the common home builder programs from bhv&Co, it takes me about 30-60 minutes and I have to search for the necessary functions. For a technical employee, I assume that he knows the software – presumably then a bit more data will be stored than I do in the hobby program. Therefore, generously estimating 4 hours (200 sqm floor area; 2 floors, of which only the upper floor is relevant, with 2 rectangular large rooms and a staircase from below).

Why are 32 hours needed for that???

I am a project manager and often purchase external expertise. Fundamentally, I am a big fan of giving specialists who understand their craft good money for good performance. I come from consulting myself and we also put sufficient buffers of between 50 and 100% in our offers – but this here seems to me to be more than 800% buffer. Maybe also because it’s just not clear to me what all has to be done in the 32 hours. Could someone please explain that to me?

Thanks and regards,
Melville

I don't find that unreasonable at all. I am a technical draftsman myself, admittedly for supply technology, but 24 hours go by quickly; that's 3 working days to present a plan in a way that it is also approvable. I wouldn't make the mistake of comparing that to some hobby-like "drawing". ;)

As I said, I only know my own time expenditure, I actually have nothing to do with construction drawings, but that seems appropriate or completely fine to me.

How big is the barn, are there plans of it, or did the architect first have to do a survey?

Yes, the old construction drawings and also the static calculations exist - it is certainly sensible to check them again afterwards and adjust them if necessary - by the way, that is also a separate point in the fee offer.

I also think that you cannot compare this with my hobby programs - that is why I have already applied the factor 4. But 3 days of work simply seems too much to me, and I cannot for the life of me imagine what could fill 3 days.

Roughly simplified: draw 5 walls (north, east, south, west and one wall that creates the 2 rooms; a wall with a bend), draw a breakthrough opening from room 1 to room 2, draw 2 windows, draw 2 gates, a staircase from below and the roof with open rafters and x degrees inclination - set the room height at the wall and enter the room height at the highest point of the roof (if not calculated directly from the inclination). The as-is condition is done. For the to-be state, draw a breakthrough for a second door, extend the windows to floor height and convert the 2 gates into windows. Convert the Eternit roof into a "properly" covered roof with insulation. That’s it. And that takes 3 days? Plus one day architect?

Here is also the floor plan - however, some of the windows from the floor plan were not installed. The staircase is not angled either, but runs straight along the "room-dividing" wall from south to north.

As I said, it doesn't really seem to me that the architect wants to rip you off with this. If you calculate it the other way around:

24h - 50% buffer makes 16h. If you now only consider that a layout also has to be created, everything needs to be properly labeled and prepared, the work just for the form of the plan alone takes 2-4 hours. So that leaves 12 hours for the actual drawing.
If the architect is not yet working in 3D (which is not that uncommon), he has to construct the views and sections separately and cannot simply display them as a "by-product" of the floor plans.

If you roughly add all this up, you could even, nitpicking, say that 16-20h is possible. However, this cannot be judged at all, because in [Vorlauf] the structural calculation is actually still being done.

In your place, you should just politely ask him if he can explain the time expenditure to you and what is included in it. ;)

Thank you very much for the assessment!