Draftsperson ----- help me.

[Kapohocat]

Chief Architect 10.0 that was mentioned above runs about $2300 at the moment for those interested. Almost impossible to bootleg a copy and not suggested.

Getting your 1200 sf house designed runs .65 - $1.25 sf for drafting in todays market. (Hotcatz correct me if I am incorrect...)

-Cat



Catherine Dumond
Blue Water Project Management
808 217-7578
http://bluewaterpm.125mb.com/index.html
"We help make building your dream home a reality"

[robinhugh]

Punagirl,

Fun, ain't it. Hope you found someone.

I'm a starving artist type with a BA in Fine Art, a MA in Architecture and 20+years experience asa carpenter/craftsman. designed houses, boats and assorted things in between, am moving to Hilo/pahoa at the end of the month to build a house in Leilani, have computers, design software, etc. am a really cheap date, and would be happy to help if I can and if you have not already found someone. You will have to Have a licensed architect sign off and stamp drawings and I have a friend in Colorado that is licenced in Hawaii.

So, if all else fails.. will be there at the end of Oct.

Robin

[David D]

robinhugh, NOW you tell me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Hotzcatz]

Aloha Kapohocat & Punatics,

Yuppers, those sound about like the right numbers for drafting. I generally charge $300 a page and don't really care what's on it - residential, commercial, whatevers, but it all comes out to about the same. Per page is a lot easier to figure out than per square foot, too. I think the absolute lowest quoted rates are around fifty cents a square foot, but those are only for certain jobs from what I understand. I don't do the calling around myself, usually clients will have already done that before they call me and they like to share information.

AutoCAD is not an easy to use software program, but it is the standard. If you go through the effort to learn to use it, you'll have a career afterwards if you wanted to continue drafting. Chief Architect has good reviews, but I don't have a copy. I did get an evaluation copy of Chief Architect where projects can't be saved or printed and looked at it briefly, but if I can't save or print and aren't going to put out the couple grand to buy the program, why bother?

Ah, Punagirl, for the sixty five cents to a dollar and a half per square foot prices, I don't think you are going to get someone to do a "fly through" type view or even a materials list. Perhaps if they were charging by the hour then they would do additional work?

You can email your file to Hilo Blueprint and they can print it out for you and have it ready to pick up when you go into town. You will have to call them first to get the type of plotter they have so you can configure your file to that type of plotter. Or you can email the file to HonBlue in Honolulu and they will mail prints to your house. I've done both before, but now I have a plotter here, so I haven't had to do that for awhile.

You can also go to www.wwpa.org and get a "Western Lumber Span Computer" to help you size up lumber. Handy little "slipstick" type "computer". And there is a lot of information online on the Hawaii County website about getting building permits, too.

A hui hou,
Cathy
Hawaii Drafting Service

[G. Leis]

Autodesk products (AutoCAD, etc.) are certainly the industry standard in CAD software. However, when it comes to residential design, the offerings from Advanced Relational Technology - the makers of Chief Architect - bring a lot to the table for both the design professional and home users.

It is true that CA 10 runs about $2300 for the full Enterprise Package, but OTH AutoCAD 2007 is a $4K outlay and Architectural Desktop is close to $5K. Too, if you are starting from scratch additional $$'s have to be budgeted for training because as Cat alluded to, these proggies are among the least intuitive with some of the steepest learning curves in the commercial software universe.

For a draftsperson or AIA type, plans generated by Chief Architect have several advantages in addition to lower initial cost. While not up to AutoCAD in term of overall sophistication and power, for a CAD application it's relatively easy to use - you can bang out a basic box house within an hour or two of installation without doing much more than glance at the instructions. The software also provides beautifully rendered (almost photo-realistic) camera views of the project that can be panned, rotated. zoomed, etc. so that you can show the client a pretty good idea of what it will actually look like. One feature it has that to me is invaluable is the ability to create a materials list on the fly. I could be wrong, but I don't think other similar programs have this capability . . . at least not in stock configuration.

The consumer version of CA is actually called Better Homes & Gardens Home Designer, now at version 7.0. It costs any where from about $60 to over $500 depending upon features included, and is available from many bricks & mortar retailers including Costco (most of the time & most locations) and online.

There are other options available to homeowners using Windows PC's also, including 3D Home Architect, Punch! Super Home Suite, and Total 3D Home & Landscape Design Suite. Mac users are basically out of luck, although there used to be a program called Abracadata Design Your Own Home Suite. I don't think it's still being developed or supported, but stray copies may be available from liquidators.

All of these things let you play around with various design ideas so you can better help your drafter of architect actually translate your dreams into workable plans.

aloha,
Gene

_______________________

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

[toucano]

Gene - I used to use Abracadata Design Your Own Home Suite. The most intuitive CAD proram I ever had. There was a MAC (much better to my way of thinking) and a PC version. I know that you can (or could at least a year ago) still get the MAC version. BUT you needed to be running MAC OS9 or prior. You needed to search VIA Google because the sale of the program was being done by a liguidator (not Abracadata) for like $10 a copy. Well worth it.