ᐅ Calculating the Cost of an Architect-Designed Home Including Owner-Performed Work?
Created on: 12 Mar 2013 09:13
K
Kollisionskurs
Hello everyone,
We are planning to build a single-family house (passive house) in the near future and are currently in the initial planning phase.
We already have a plot of land, and our budget has an upper limit of 300,000€.
At first, we looked at several prefabricated house providers and compared them (to get a sense of the costs). Conclusion: we were overwhelmed by the sheer number — and of course, each claims to be the best quality on the market.
At the same time, we are considering building most of the house ourselves, as there are several carpenters and other tradespeople in our family (I am an electrician, my uncle is a painter, and so on). For this reason, we approached an architect to get a rough design and a cost estimate for a traditionally designed and built house.
He sketched a preliminary design and in his preliminary cost estimate listed the house as turnkey
(including exterior landscaping and garage).
The individual trades were not specifically calculated; instead, a base value of 350€ per m³ (cubic meter) was assumed.
This results in total costs of about 420,000€, which exceeds our budget.
The additional construction costs (permit fees, surveys, structural engineer, safety coordinator, geotechnical expert, etc.) were estimated at 15% of the total amount.
As I see it, these figures are realistic, aren’t they? However, in our case, they are not affordable. As mentioned, these costs reflect a house built entirely by external companies—but we need the cost estimate for the house if we contribute a significant amount of our own labor. Therefore, we are considering having the architect complete the detailed drawings and plans. Only then could, for example, our carpenters calculate the material costs in advance, and so on. This would result in a cost per trade and, in the end, a total cost including our family’s own labor share.
If the total costs decrease accordingly, wouldn’t the architect’s fee be lower as well?
The fee is usually based on the projected construction costs, right?
Setting aside whether we will end up within our targeted budget and accepting that we would already have to pay the architect’s planning fees without knowing for sure if we can afford to build this house based on the resulting costs:
Do I have any other way to calculate the costs upfront in our situation?
How would experienced people approach this? As mentioned, we are at the very beginning and possibly still a bit naïve and indecisive... better now than later.
Any tips are greatly appreciated...
Good luck
We are planning to build a single-family house (passive house) in the near future and are currently in the initial planning phase.
We already have a plot of land, and our budget has an upper limit of 300,000€.
At first, we looked at several prefabricated house providers and compared them (to get a sense of the costs). Conclusion: we were overwhelmed by the sheer number — and of course, each claims to be the best quality on the market.
At the same time, we are considering building most of the house ourselves, as there are several carpenters and other tradespeople in our family (I am an electrician, my uncle is a painter, and so on). For this reason, we approached an architect to get a rough design and a cost estimate for a traditionally designed and built house.
He sketched a preliminary design and in his preliminary cost estimate listed the house as turnkey
(including exterior landscaping and garage).
The individual trades were not specifically calculated; instead, a base value of 350€ per m³ (cubic meter) was assumed.
This results in total costs of about 420,000€, which exceeds our budget.
The additional construction costs (permit fees, surveys, structural engineer, safety coordinator, geotechnical expert, etc.) were estimated at 15% of the total amount.
As I see it, these figures are realistic, aren’t they? However, in our case, they are not affordable. As mentioned, these costs reflect a house built entirely by external companies—but we need the cost estimate for the house if we contribute a significant amount of our own labor. Therefore, we are considering having the architect complete the detailed drawings and plans. Only then could, for example, our carpenters calculate the material costs in advance, and so on. This would result in a cost per trade and, in the end, a total cost including our family’s own labor share.
If the total costs decrease accordingly, wouldn’t the architect’s fee be lower as well?
The fee is usually based on the projected construction costs, right?
Setting aside whether we will end up within our targeted budget and accepting that we would already have to pay the architect’s planning fees without knowing for sure if we can afford to build this house based on the resulting costs:
Do I have any other way to calculate the costs upfront in our situation?
How would experienced people approach this? As mentioned, we are at the very beginning and possibly still a bit naïve and indecisive... better now than later.
Any tips are greatly appreciated...
Good luck