Long processing times in the planning office -> Change?

Hello everyone,

In October, on recommendation, we went to an engineering office. Here we received a fairly good offer for the design planning and the subsequent service phases up to the execution planning.

After a detailed conversation with the civil engineer responsible for us, during which we also already submitted sketches of our ideas. We had to wait about 2 months for our first draft. This was only created after several inquiries and sent to us shortly before the turn of the year. Unfortunately, the planning did not correspond to the discussed requirements in many respects (the desired basement was completely missing, rooms were in completely different places than requested, etc.).

In total, we are now on the 4th draft of our design planning. Adjusting our requested changes always takes several weeks each time, and essential points of the discussed changes keep being missing. The drafts continue to arrive only after repeated calls.

We now hope that with the next draft, the design planning will finally be completed. Now we are wondering whether it still makes sense to continue working with the office or if it would be better to switch the office for the building application, execution planning, statics, and so on.

All in all, this is extremely frustrating for us, as not only has our construction start been postponed from May to September, and we are already considering postponing it to early 2023, but other issues are increasingly slipping away from us. For example, I would like to finalize the construction financing due to rising interest rates. But even here, the banks want cost breakdowns by trades and project descriptions, for which we again rely on our engineering office, which we can only reach very sporadically to even discuss such topics. (My last email asking whether a cost breakdown could already be prepared has not been answered for 2 weeks, and by phone I only reach colleagues who cannot help me further.)

Do you think it still makes sense to look for another planning office for the further service phases now, or do you think this would only delay our construction start even further?

Unfortunately, due to lack of experience, I cannot help you further. We are building with a developer, everything was already planned or was quickly changed according to our wishes. But to be honest, I am somewhat shocked at how long it is taking for you. The people must also realize that quite a bit of the progress of the designs depends on you, not just the interest rates. I also find the slow communication strange. I wonder if there are not any binding deadlines for completion recorded in a contract with the architect or engineer?

I find half a year with an external office acceptable. However, it is unprofessional that the requested basement etc. was not taken into account. Either it is an inattentive company that should get at most 2 out of 5 stars, or it is worth 5 stars because, due to budget indication and various other factors, it has already delivered an optimal plan. The question is whether you want to approve the impossible… Of course, you only communicate something like that ;)

Räume waren an komplett anderen stellen, als gewünscht und co.)

von den besprochenen Änderungen fehlen immer wieder wesentliche Punkte.

In October, on recommendation, we went to an engineering office. Here we received a pretty good offer for the design planning and subsequent service phases up to the execution planning. [...]
Overall, we are now on the 4th draft of our design planning. Adjusting our change requests always takes several weeks each time, and essential points of the discussed changes are repeatedly missing. The drafts also continue to arrive only after multiple reminder calls.
We now hope that the design planning will finally be completed with the next draft.

I do not share your hopes. What wrong have you done to the people who recommended such a shoddy operation to you?
It seems to me that "a pretty good offer" here means a "cheap Jack" with "fee-adequate sloppiness," and the "responsible structural engineer" assigned to you is the slave put in charge of such charity cases:

After a detailed conversation with the structural engineer responsible for us, during which we also submitted sketches of our ideas, we had to wait about 2 months for our first draft. This was only prepared after several inquiries and sent to us shortly before the end of the year. Unfortunately, the planning did not correspond to the discussed requirements in many respects (the requested basement was completely missing, rooms were in completely different places than desired, and so on).

An execution planning in which such essential things are missing or wrong will be unusable. I am just picturing how the craftsmen proceed with different plan versions: the electrical connection box ends up in the guest room, and the basement stairs are twisted the opposite way compared to those from the ground floor to the upper floor.

I believe you are calling/emailing too much, and also dealing with clerks instead of your actual "contractual counterpart." However, we do not know your contract, what is even stipulated there regarding the services, their deadlines, and the like – perhaps you really have no other options than to hope and pray.

For comparison…

we are also building with a small construction engineering office and started in August. We had a first rough sketch from the architect and then the construction engineer took over the planning. We had the first cost estimate within a month according to the sketch. We had the building permit before Christmas. The tender is running and the big things - excavation, shell construction, windows - have been awarded. The excavators start in April. We are in contact with the construction engineer every day to ensure everything keeps moving and decisions are made.
Honestly, I would switch. In almost half a year you haven’t accomplished much and this is just the beginning! Not replying to emails and no one answering the phone would be a no-go for me.

We are also working with an architectural firm, and based on your descriptions, I wouldn't have a good feeling. The first draft after the needs assessment meeting also took us about 4 weeks. However, there was communication in between and it was already mentioned beforehand that it could take 1-2 weeks longer due to vacation time. After that, everything always happened within a few days/a week. If I call there and am not immediately connected, someone who can provide information always calls back within a few hours.

During the draft phase, all of this may still be tolerable, but now just think about when it comes to the tendering, awarding, selection of materials, etc... For example, we had an appointment with heating/plumbing where the arrangement of the bathrooms was discussed. During the appointment, we expressed some things that were actually important to us. We slept on it over the weekend, communicated on Monday that it should be different after all, and on Wednesday the revised execution plan was there.

Questions simply come up more often in between, whether because of construction financing, kitchen, scheduling, etc. As a client, I expect an appropriate response time.