ᐅ Planning / Architect, Involvement of Specialist Designers for Approval Drawings

Hello everyone,
our architect would like to include HVAC and electrical engineers as specialist planners for the building permit / planning permission phase. The reasoning behind this is, for example, that the structural engineer needs to know what will be embedded in a concrete ceiling.
However, I don’t have an electrician or plumbing contractor yet. The tender is still to come. To me, this seems like a classic chicken-and-egg problem.
How is this usually handled?

Thanks for your help.

A specialist planner is not the same as the contractor performing the work

Thank you for your reply!

Ok. Understood so far. But wouldn’t it be reasonable to have the contractor also handle the planning? We are talking about a single-family house, and I’m not sure if I want to hire a MEP engineer.

I can well understand that. Usually, a professional company can handle this with their experience. But you are somewhat right about the chicken-and-egg problem. Every planner adds extra costs. However, from experience, the structural engineer should know what needs to be included in the concrete slab. Or the architect might also know, but prefers to delegate the task to someone else.

Electrical wiring should not really matter much on the concrete slab, as there is hardly anything significant installed or built on it.

Controlled ventilation system ducts are a different matter, which is why I had the system planned already before the rebar layout was finalized, so the structural engineer is informed.

It is preferable to separate planning and construction. There are also specialized design firms that focus exclusively on planning. Whether this is worthwhile for a single-family home depends, in my opinion, on the technical features to be included.

Best regards,
Dirk Grafe