Why Select a Design/Builder as Opposed to an Architect?

In this day and age of inflated and unstable home prices many homeowners are foregoing plans to trade up to a larger or nicer home and are instead, planning on doing improvements to their existing homes.

Angies List, a website where members rate specific contractors and can also choose contractors based on their ratings, recently conducted a survey on their members. This survey indicated that homeowners intend to spend 13% more over last year on their 2008 home improvement and maintenance projects.

So when you are planning a major remodeling project such as a kitchen, living room, bathroom or room addition, who do you turn to for planning and designing the project? The two top choices would be to hire an architect or a design/builder. The question is which one should you hire? Which one would be better?

Ten Reasons Why a Design/Builder is Better

These are the reasons why I think a design/builder is the better type of professional to hire for planning your home improvement project:

1. This type of builder is more in tune with your remodeling budget and can therefore create a design that will be best able to stay within it.
2. An architect tends to be somewhat detached from the building part of the project; a design/builder, however, because of his intimate familiarity with the building process and materials, will tend to do a better job.
3. The architectural plans from an architect can sometimes be vague or unclear causing conflicts between the architect and builder.
4. A builder who bids the job from a set of architectural plans will potentially cause conflict with the owners for missing data and will use this to add extra charges to the homeowner.
5. A qualified design/builder will save the owner money from preventing any architect/builder conflicts.
6. A qualified design/builder will simplify the design process since only the drawings that are necessary for that specific job will be done.
7. A design/builder’s drawings are more understandable since they use a standard medium for the drawings that everyone in the house and field is familiar with.
8. The design/builder is not only interested in the design, but has responsibility for the final product.
9. A design/builder process saves money since the homeowner does not have to pay the architect a heavy fee to oversee the project once a week, which is oftentimes 10% of the construction contract price.
10. A qualified design/builder is very likely to have an in-house architect who oversees the process.

So there are the ten reasons why the design/builder is the better way to go for your home remodeling or addition project.

Roger Perron is President of Fine Designs by Roger Perron, Inc., General Contractors, 3171 Los Feliz Blvd., Los Angeles CA, 90039 offering Architectural Design, Home Remodeling and Additions of all types, as well as Custom New Home Construction in the Los Angeles area. He can be reached at: http://www.rogerperron.com/site/contact.html.