05-15-2008, 02:59 PM
The charges are different depending on the draftsperson and the architect/engineer and the job at hand. I generally charge a flat fee of $350 per page for drafting since it is a lot easier to count pages than square footage. A set of drawings for a house like being described would run three to five pages, most likely four. That is for a preliminary floor plan with an elevation or two so the homeowner can see the project. Then they can make all the changes they want to the preliminary. After that the changes will be charged out separately although so far I haven't had to do that real often. Then the final drawings are made and the homeowner or contractor gets three sets of blueprints to get stamped and taken to the Building Department. If the Building Department has comments, those get addressed as part of the $350 per page fee.
The homeowner gets to do the run around to the Building Department and the various engineers and things unless they want to pay more for that. Since we are so far out from town, I prefer not to run the paperwork unless the client is off island. When I used to have my drafting office downtown Honolulu, it wasn't a problem to run plans through the Building Department but now getting to town takes about an hour so I prefer not to do that anymore.
When I started in '81 my fees were $300 a page so I guess it has gone up a bit since then, but not by too much. It doesn't matter where the design process starts, either from vague hand waving while overlooking the project site "a picture window overlooking the horse pasture here and a stairway coming up on this side" sort of description to someone who has a pretty decisive idea of what they want, I'll draw it up. Mostly I make sure it meets code at an affordable price since generally most of my clients aren't overly wealthy. And it doesn't matter if it is commercial or residential it is all pretty much the same. With a per page rate, the commercial jobs take more pages so they automatically get charged more on a per square foot basis so it all works out.
For architect's stamps on a residential project, they generally run between $350 and $1,800 depending on the size of the job, who the draftsperson is and who the architect or engineer is.
The homeowner gets to do the run around to the Building Department and the various engineers and things unless they want to pay more for that. Since we are so far out from town, I prefer not to run the paperwork unless the client is off island. When I used to have my drafting office downtown Honolulu, it wasn't a problem to run plans through the Building Department but now getting to town takes about an hour so I prefer not to do that anymore.
When I started in '81 my fees were $300 a page so I guess it has gone up a bit since then, but not by too much. It doesn't matter where the design process starts, either from vague hand waving while overlooking the project site "a picture window overlooking the horse pasture here and a stairway coming up on this side" sort of description to someone who has a pretty decisive idea of what they want, I'll draw it up. Mostly I make sure it meets code at an affordable price since generally most of my clients aren't overly wealthy. And it doesn't matter if it is commercial or residential it is all pretty much the same. With a per page rate, the commercial jobs take more pages so they automatically get charged more on a per square foot basis so it all works out.
For architect's stamps on a residential project, they generally run between $350 and $1,800 depending on the size of the job, who the draftsperson is and who the architect or engineer is.
Kurt Wilson