Why buy from Design Easy?
Let me ask you a question, when you purchase your house plans, what next? Are you buying house plans to gain outline planning permission on a particular plot, or is the scale and massing of your site already accepted, and its now detailed PP you seek?
If you fit into the first category, why spend thousands on a bespoke house plan design when outline planning might not be granted? Think of the potential abortive costs involved there!
Also - if you fit into either of the above categories, we can help. First of all house plan design isn’t the rocket science many Architects would lead you to believe. The value of an Architect comes with bespoke design where unique cutting edge structures are needed and where creativity is paramount. On the other hand you don’t need a sledge hammer to break open a nut. Architects often charge extortionate fee’s for simple house plans, often based on % of total construction cost. Such a traditional approach to the procurement of house plans is now outdated, and leading clients now insist their consultants are procured under a fee bid competitive tender scenario, ensuring ridiculous Architect fee’s associated with the design of house plans are eradicated.
We don’t claim to be Chartered Architects, however we are fully aware of UK building regulations and are also experts in the use of Autocad software. Combine these two skills, and we offer house plan design services at a great price, essentially using a nut cracker to crack open a nut.
As you probably know, house plan design in the UK is governed by strict planning regulations, so many eccentric glass and steel designs are often a none starter on many developments. If your development needs to be in keeping with the local environment to secure planning permission, why pay an architect to re invent the wheel producing house plans already in existance? To a certain extent your design is dictated by that of the neighbouring properties, properties which I must point out already have a design.
You aren’t necessarily restricted by house plan designs listed on our website, why not find a house plan design in one of the many house plan design books currently on the market, then instruct us to prepare scale house plan drawings to your specific requirements, but also to UK building regulations and save a fortune in the process!
The feasibility stage must also work hand in hand with house plan design, as if the ‘would be’ development costs too much before its even built, its not just budgetary cost constraints that need to be considered. Overbuilding is a common problem in the UK, where house plan design is over specified by an Architect, the ultimate potential cost can often exceed end value of the development, which ultimately means all your hard work is for nothing. Granted you may be building a family home and location may be the main driver as apposed to cost, but surely if you had a say in the matter you would rather end value of your house plan design be greater than cost? only a fool wouldn’t. This is where our partners, the Quantity Surveyors come into play. Our Freelance Quantity Surveyors assist in the feasibility stage, ensuring pre contract cost control of your house plan design is closely monitored. Architects and other Architectural house plan design websites don’t necessarily have this luxury, which makes our house plan design service unique, and an invaluable tool to our clients procuring house plans. Ask any Architect to prepare a Bill of Quantities and he’ll give you a million and one reasons why you should go with a Schedule of Work, the bottom line is however that Architects don’t prepare Bills of Quantity as unlike a Quantity Surveyor they are not trained in measurement, so you can see the incentive to promote Schedules of Works.
Architects will have you believe your house design project can be tendered using a ‘Schedule of Work’ document. This is because a ‘Schedule of Works’ on a new build property is basically a list of the building components i.e. (1) Substructure – Item, (2) External Walls – Item, and so on, so their time spent preparing such documents is limited. This approach obviously makes good business sense to Architects, however the document itself has limited use as a tender document or as a tool to use by the self builder / developer should you decide to break up and procure individual tenders direct through subcontractors, cutting the main contractor out from the loop. This however doesn’t stop Architects selling such documents for in excess of £2,000.00 to unsuspecting private clients. Whereas an all singing, all dancing Bill of Quantities (standard residential design up to 300m2 GIFA) through PCS Solutions will only set you back £495.00 + VAT (with 15% discount applied) when using our house plan design services. Our partners the Quantity Surveyors, recommend the ‘Schedule of Work’ approach is avoided on all but refurbishment projects, for the following reasons:
A) Schedules of work give minimal support or assistance to the tenderer limited by time constraints, the ultimate result being inflated tenders returned offering poor value for money to the client. The tender documents are lacking sufficient detail to adequately allow tenderers to price on their own merits, and where sufficient time or resources is lacking within the contractors organisation, either a risk factor is applied or the opportunity to tender is rejected. The potential huge risk factor applied potentially a cost that may never be incurred, thus inflating the tender price due to a poorly prepared document.
B) Tenderers generally only have two – three weeks to submit their tender, in order to submit a bid under a ‘Schedule of Works’ the contractor will then need to quantify the building components themselves at their cost. This often results in many prospective tenderers pulling out of the tender process as the time and effort involved often outweighs the potential of securing the work.
C) Shedules of Work offer poor value for money and very little detail in order to break up the various packages and tender direct to subcontractors should you decide. For example giving a subcontractor a complete breakdown of the works for each element, allows them to price on an even platform to that of the next tenderer, increases speed of pricing and reduces risk.
D) A standard method of measurement exists (SMM7) for the purpose of standardising the way tenders are procured. None standard ‘Schedule of Work’ style documents remove consistency, increase uncertainly, and undoubtedly influence tender costs in certain circumstances.
Building your own home through our house plans is one of the biggest decisions you will ever make and you want assurance that selection and excellence of choice are provided to enable you to make the right decision.
We provide a service alternative to the traditional way of obtaining your house plans from an Architect.
We invite you to browse through our selection of house, garage, bungalows & one off building plans, all originally designed from the self builder to the domestic builder.
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