Question for any architects

[titanhog]

First of all, let me apologize up front if this post is out of line for this site, but I hope the moderators will allow this to stay up for at least a few hours til I get an answer.

I'm having a home designed by an architect. The design fee is X, the document fee is X, and the engineering fee is about 1/3X. Does this sound about right, fee wise, to have a home designed? It's getting really costly and I wasn't expecting the engineering fee.

Thanks

[StevenRocks]

The engineering fee is not unusual. Typically site plans and some structural elements are farmed out to land surveyors and structural engineers, respectively. Each of those parties have to stamp their drawings to make them valid, and stamped drawings are never cheap.

As far as the other fees, they tend to vary depending on the architect. Design and document fees are factored seperately because of the cost of printing construction documents. Some localities may only require one submittal set for permitting while others require many more.

[titanhog]

The engineering fee is not unusual. Typically site plans and some structural elements are farmed out to land surveyors and structural engineers, respectively. Each of those parties have to stamp their drawings to make them valid, and stamped drawings are never cheap.

As far as the other fees, they tend to vary depending on the architect. Design and document fees are factored seperately because of the cost of printing construction documents. Some localities may only require one submittal set for permitting while others require many more.