Architect/Structural Fee Residential
Architect/Structural Fee Residential
(OP)
I sometimes do residential structural engineering work and have recently got into discussion with this contractor regarding design fee. Some of the time the jobs I work on our small enough where I am the only professional involved preparing the plans (i.e. no architect). I told him I thought architect's charge about 7% of the construction cost for a custom home plans. He was blown away by this number and said I was way off base, am I? Maybe his only experiences are with clients who purchased a set of starter plans and had the design professional bring it up to local codes or had a "designer" draft up the plans and bring them to arch or eng to bring up to code and seal. I base my fees for every job based on an hourly estimate it takes me to do what calculations and/or drawings need to completed. I think he thinks everything should be a flat fee regardless of complexity...like a "small addition prepare plans and seal = $1,500"....this guy is frustrating me. Interested in others thoughts on the 7% on archs fee for custom home plans and what you charge for small residential work? How much do you think location plays into costs...I am in florida.






RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
Our designs for these types of homes are also typically not wood. There's usually a sheet of glass wrapping the home or some other type of construction that makes wood impossible. In my opinion, this makes it easier. I've never designed an entire home out of wood, but it seems like it would be extremely time consuming.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
I have started to do side work away from my firm, and i am getting into constant debates about fee's.
My firm(not my side work) charges from .5% to 1%, depending on the architect. So lets say about .75% of construction costs. We are design consultants for typically new commercial structures.
Currently we are also the lead on a concrete restoration project, we were are getting the lead fee of 5% of construction costs. This is in turn equals a LOT of money on a 15-20 million project.
Now when a non licensed "architet" / drafter brings me a job they want me to review and sign and seal for 350$ regardless of the construction costs.... And i think this is B.S.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
If you get a 75% "Accept" rate, and can live with that 25% "Except" rate based on losing the time and effort making the lost bids, then the 3% fee is about right.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
To do it right, it would undoubtedly be time consuming. Especially with modern residential architects/designers who pretentiously try to mimic an urban skyline in the roof design of an urban home. Of course, these overworked "McMansions" are all crammed so closely together in new subdivisions that they destroy each other aesthetically.
Does any structural engineer get rich doing residential work?
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
First, if that technologist is not under the direct supervision of the sealing engineer, then that could be a violation of state rules.
Second, unless the engineer is involved from the beginning he is essentially starting from scratch. He has to verify all loads, framing, follow all load paths to ground, check all the calcs, check details (to ensure they respect the assumptions made in design as well as for constructability).
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
rittz, I think it really comes down to who has or gets the work. Not so much actual work, and liability. I agree with you that if i am reviewing the whole project, and then assuming full liability for the project as the main professional i deserve the lions share of the fee. Unfortunately, these "designers" or what ever they want to call them selves are selling the work, and can find some whore of an engineer to do it for less.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
It has been my experience that there is extreme fee reduction pressure in doing residential structural work. I have never done a whole house design, but I get lots of calls about fixing some sort of problem, usually on residential renovation projects. Some of the calls come from builders and some of them come from homeowners. I used to stress out and try to reason with them about what scope of work would be required to deliver a quality result, but they never wanted to hear it. Now, I just quote them a fair, but reasonable price for an initial inspection and consultation including a letter report of our findings, and quote them an hourly fee or a fixed fee per drawing/detail/etc for a permit package. I'll be honest, the hit rate on these calls is minimal. Its not really worth the time to answer the phone, because I am certain that after they hang up with me, they call the next guy on the list, and then the next guy after that, until they find someone who will do it for $300, and I never hear from them again.
I presume that the only money in residential structural design is probably in high end "rich guy houses" because they actually have to have design professionals because they are outside of the limitations of IRC or conventional light framing. But the effort required to design these projects is substantial, so getting an appropriate fee is still probably difficult to do.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
Some higher end homes with moment frames, non-stacking shear walls, transfer beams, and those more of commercial construction in nature, 3% is not unreasonable for full service (calcs, drafting, shop drawings and inspection).
FYI all, I just bid a small 2 story wood frame house here for lateral calcs and markups only - the winning bid was between 4 and $500 - undercutting me by several hundred dollars. It's getting tough and very competitive out there. I was the middle of three bids. No reason to lower my price though.
Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
Motto: KISS
Motivation: Don't ask
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
I agree with this so mch, that I am re-posting your post in its entirety:
don't know that I see a whole lot of benefit to the engineer sealing drawings if they are designed by a technologist in terms of reducing time on the job, and, consequently, his fee.
First, if that technologist is not under the direct supervision of the sealing engineer, then that could be a violation of state rules.
Second, unless the engineer is involved from the beginning he is essentially starting from scratch. He has to verify all loads, framing, follow all load paths to ground, check all the calcs, check details (to ensure they respect the assumptions made in design as well as for constructability).
M^2-
At $500 bucks for a job like that, you'd better get it done before lunch or you'll be out of business.
You gotta make enough $ above and beyond wages to keep the lights on!
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
you can go out of business just as fast by getting too many jobs at a low price.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
Typical fees charged by the arch techs is in the $1.00 to $1.50 per sq.ft. The designs generally follow the prescriptive requirements of the Code, i.e. pick and choose spans from tables in the Code. There is no way I can/want to complete entire house plan for that low of a fee. Therefore, I have developed a relationship with many of the home designers where I am called in to engineer anything beyond the perscriptive requirements, items such as long span beams, beams with point loads, tall wood framed walls, tall foundation walls. And it's all billed hourly.
There are the 'rich person houses', which quite often become structurally complex and require both architects and engineers. One house I worked on had 35 full size architectural drawings and another 7 or 8 structural drawings for a 2,500 sq.ft. chalet. The fee was definitely more than $1.00 to $1.50 sq.ft!!!!
I have walked away from many projects where fee expectations are low and still remain busy. And sometimes they come back to you. I once bid about $4,000 to do a job and lost it to another engineer who bid $500. It turned into a $5,000+ job to fix everything that should have been done right in the first place. Know what needs to be done, do it efficiently and charge accordingly.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
Three years ago, I needed the services of a barrister. He told me his fee was $375 per hour and he was not prepared to commit to a specific dollar amount. He recommended application to the court for dismissal and estimated his fee to be somewhere between $5,000 and $10,000 up until the dismissal application was made (with no guarantee of success). When I asked for an estimate to go through trial, he simply indicated it would be in "the tens of thousands". When I asked how many tens of thousands, he said "seven or eight".
Dentists and lawyers do not compete with each other for work as engineers do. Dentists and lawyers don't care if someone walks out of their office without accepting their terms. Some dentists even charge a fee for looking at your teeth and estimating the cost to do the remedial work. If you don't like it, you still pay the examination fee.
Why don't engineers do that? What is the matter with engineers? We seem to be genuinely afraid to charge fees commensurate with the expertise and time required to do the project and the responsibility involved.
On small residential projects, we act like fly-by-night contractors, undercutting fees in order to get a job which, like as not will end up in court because we do not spend enough time to do it properly.
Until we smarten up, this is what will continue to happen.
BA
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
This guy routinely takes generic plans off the internet and wants me to turn them into actual construction dwgs for him to submit to building officials and the homeowners. The guy acts like all I have to do is reproduce is generic plans in CAD and he wants me to do it for a ridiculously cheap fee = to about the same amount as a set of pre-approved, pre-packaged plans, but these are usually custom homes.
I finally gave up on the guy a few weeks back.
I love residential building projects. I have built many many homes with my own hands. I keep hoping that I can make a fair wage amount on these projects, but I think it is just a pipe dream.
I honestly don't think there is any $$ to be made on residential projects unless they are "rich guy homes".
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
And 5 years later a Realtor can walk up to the same building and tell some people how great the building is and get 3.5% on each end, 4-5 times what i got paid on each end. I think about this almost daily as i see Realtors driving around in there Mercedes.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
I'm not sure many Realtors are driving Mercedes with the way the market is today (at least in the US).
I have always been fascinated by this topic. I see that most fees are based upon construction costs. How do you properly figure construction costs. Is this something that is give to you by the architect during the bidding phase?
I recently lost a job on a small commercial project. The project was a wood framed 4,800 square foot garage with a mezzanine. The client (owner) had no idea what he was getting into or what was required. He didn't realize that the local jurisdiction required an architect/engineer to design the project. He though he could just go out an build the structure himself like the "old days". I gave him a free education on the design/permitting process process only to be quickly dismissed once he had all of the necessary information. Kind of irritating.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
Calling engineering a profession is only applicable when others
want it to be ie. where liability is concerned or innovative cost cutting designs are involved. But when the subject of renumeration
is on the table, then this concept of professionalism goes out the window.
What we need to do is hire a good-natured nanny to take care of us and watch out for our interests, since we lack this capability ourselves.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
i've got a arch client that i typically do minor residential engineering for. he's pretty good alligning load path and he can pick his own joists sizes out of the IRC, but calls me when he needs an LVL sized. i don't mind this work at all. it's the little per diems here and there that fill the cracks between the large rocks.
he did however send me dwgs to give a proposal by, the first house from scratch that needs a full structural set and yes i would classify it as a "rich guy house." i gave him a percentage fee that definitely reflected the residential market; we'll see how it goes.
BA's remarks about dentists and lawyers are dead on the money, no pun intended. for residential repair type jobs where the home owner calls, i've been requesting they provide a check for one or two hours of per diem time at the initial site visit. this weeds out the payers from the non-payers and it at least covers your initial time spent if the job never pans out.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
Dik
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
A person will not have anyone other than a dentist drilling into his teeth, just a fact. If you were to go to court on something with out a lawer 95% of the time you lose.
However, you can get a contractor that can guess (hopefully an educated guess) at what he is doing based on past experiences and be sucessfull 90% or more of the time. Add onto that, local building inspectors who do not spend the time or have the time to validate when an engineer is needed.
This is one reason the bridge industry is more controlled in term of engineering than the building industry. All bridges need to have an engineers seal, from a box culver to a suspension bridge. While someone somewhere has said that if the building is a certain style or less than xx dimensions an engineer may not be required.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
Unfortunately, this is why sales people get so much money.
Garth Dreger PE - AZ Phoenix area
As EOR's we should take the responsibility to design our structures to support the components we allow in our design per that industry standards.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
DWHA...
Contractors guessing only works 90% of the time until an actual life safety event occurs, like ANDREW, or a major earthquake and then sh*t hits fan.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
I agree 100%. The tough part is making & enforcing the requirements of having an engineer sign off on everything.
While I do believe that most government departments are over staffed, from my experience the building code enforcement department is understaffed. And in the case of small communities, there are many that do not have a position at all.
Here is an example:
When I was in High School I was taking a AutoCAD class. At the same time my father who is an auctioneer was wanting to build an Auction House. I drafted it up based on what my father wanted. He was able to get a permit based on these drawings alone. This is a public facility with no Architect/Engineer sign off. To add to the issues of this, 10 years later my father sold the building and it is now a chruch. All built by a local carpenter. No Engineering!!!
The city I grew up in had no code official. They are currently now working (in 2011) on determining the building code they want to adopt, the city officially has no official building code.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
We should not let our services be treated as a commodity to be bought at the lowest price. People shouldnt even be buying coffee based purely on price let alone something as complex as engineering services.
Our profession should blow their own trumpet far more often. On buildings like the Burg Dubai or similar that are very large ENGINEERING achievements you will probably find a sign telling you who the builder was, who the architect was, and possibly even who the project management company was but most likely not a sign saying who the engineer was.
Believe in the value of what you offer. If there is a acost blowout on a project these things are rarely less than 10%, spending a measly 1 or 2% extra on engineering fees can help minimise the risk of these things happening as well as potentially reduce costs. Leave the budget price wars for the bottom feeders and try and charge what you think is a reasonable fee for your services.
I could go on.............
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
What I really love... I worked for an architect once on a high end home that came in $1 million over budget, so he sent the owner an invoice for an additional $70,000! boy, I sure wish my business worked that way!
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
For example, you go to a dentist because your teeth hurt after you leave your teeth don't hurt anymore. I am sure most people would not pay dentists if they didn't do the job right.
For an engineer who is designing a house the end product is the same, a house. The owner has no idea what is good engineering practice (same goes for many contractors), they just see the final product and the price, and they have no way of knowing if the job is done right from any engineering standpoint.
If one engineer charges $5,000 for a project and another charges $500 what would a home owner notice more than the extra $4,500 he is having to spend and he is getting the same house. I don't think I would even attempt to explain load paths and anchorage forces to a lay person because no matter how much I try I doubt they would give me the $4,500 more to make sure that all that has been checked.
It is even harder to explain that to an owner when a contractor is telling him that the engineer is "over-designing" the structure and is just wasting money, and that if you don't put in that roof blocking I can get you a stainless steel refrigerator instead. Even though during the design event there is the very real possibility that the roof could pop-off because the owner would rather have that refrigerator.
I hope that someone comes up with a way to get engineers the same level of respect as other professions.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
Good for you!!! How much do you pay for professional liability insurance per year?
BA
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
BA
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
I just wanted to suggest that perhaps not having E&O insurance wasn't as big a deal 30-40 years ago. MY firm is 1 year old, and I can't imagine that I'd be able to make it 40 years without needing my insurance in today's society. I appreciate your perspective sailsam. And maybe I'm wrong - but I just thought I'd throw my 2 cents out there.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
I am 71 years old and my primary income for many years was as a general contractor. I retired 15 years ago and moved to the mountains. I started drawing house plans as a way to occupy my time and eventually got into a lot of projects (mostly residential) to perform engineering. The area requires all Log homes to be sealed by an engineer or architect. I did a great deal of research for this engineering.
Regarding fees I always gave a firm bid. It was always based on my estimate of time that the job would take never based on a percentage of the construction. I got about 50% of the jobs I bid and some of the ones I did not get eventually came back to me to fix the poor job they got from my competitors. In retirement(?) I earned app. $90K per year. Not bad for being retired and working part time.
I worked for several architects on a regular basis, contractors and some home owners.
I never have had E&O insurance. I was named in one suit by the insurance company of the contractor because they thought that my insurance would be a possible deep pocket. We I was deposed the lawyer dismissed me a defendant and hired me as an expert witness. It cost me nothing!
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
how many people reading these have designed "Burj Dubai's"? go on, raise your hands. i'm sitting in very populated metro area and when i look out my window you know what i see? lots and lots of 2 to 3 story buildings mixed in with houses. let's be realistic.
the dentist comparison was a great one, really makes me think....dentists and doctors have special skills and have developed processes that very very few people can even understand let alone employ as a professional. sizing wall studs? answering RFI's? sizing rebar for a slab.....let's be honest, it's based on simple logic and is not exactly difficult. dealing with people? that's difficult. taking RESPONSIBILITY is a whole different issue as well. last comment: the bar for the profession would be raised if we moved from associating fees with hours needed to do something. that is contractor mentality, and i do not mean that in a condescending way. looking back at a project of course it's worthwhile to see if you made money comparing time spent to fee, but how do you put hours on responsibility? how many hours do you include for "peace of mind"?
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
Do we all engage in menial tasks on a regular basis? Sure - it's part of the job. Just like doctors spend half their time charting. I spend a good chunk of time in Revit, zoning out clicking around the screen. But I would guess that most designers also find themselves regularly dealing with some real head-scratchers as well as dealing with Construction phase challenges and balancing relationships clients and contractors.
I'm the first to acknowledge that most engineers are not on par with surgeons or members of SEAL Team 6 in terms of invaluable expertise, but it can be a tough job and its hard not to feel like the market value for our services is on the low side.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
Just a couple thoughts. Last time I was at the dentist's office it cost about $120 for a 20 minute cleaning with a hygenist. There's nothing particularly special about that other than the fact that insurance is picking up the bill.
I think a statement like " sizing wall studs? answering RFI's? sizing rebar for a slab" isn't hard trivializes our roll. There's a LOT more to structural engineering (even on two and three story buildings) than " sizing wall studs? answering RFI's? sizing rebar for a slab".
Additionally, are our clients in any better position to understand what we really do than we are to understand what a dentist (or hygenist) does. I don't think so.
Could a contractor construct a three story building and provide any assurance to it's safety? Possibly, but not without being terribly conservative (which isn't always a good thing, especially for concrete design) or being an engineer himself. Just throwing more rebar in a slab could quickly cause it to be over-reinforced. Too much P/T will quickly result in problems for the owner. What about building drifts, spandrel deflection at curtainwall, lateral systems, vibrations, deep foundations, specialized connections? I'm sure there's more that's escaping me at the moment, but the point is that (at least is the work I've been exposed to) there's a lot more to what we do than simply " sizing wall studs? answering RFI's? sizing rebar for a slab".
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
I've got a follow up to my previous post about the proposal submitted a proposal two weeks ago for a "rich guy house" and the cents/sf was 2.5x my typical rate for base commercial buildings. After touching base with the architect about the job, he said that he had only budgeted X amount of dollars (which coincidentally was 2.5x less than what I had proposed) but that in hind sight he recognized that he had under-budgeted for my fee. we're meeting in the middle and I guess that's what you call "fee negotiation."
I think a very important thing to remember as a structural engineer is that all client are not created equal in terms of what fee they can get. some architect's may be able to negotiate 7% from the owner and some may only get 4%. just remember that things always even out.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
BA
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
We also do not carry E&O and have had similar experience as sailsam. Anybody can get sued for anything. I think it's safer to not carry insurance with this type of work. Only time will tell.
www.idecharlotte.com
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
So for a 5,0000 sq. ft house, you're designing and documenting everything in 10 hours to get to $125/hour at $0.25/sq. ft?
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
For the record, I love high-end custom residential. It is the most interesting and challenging engineering experiences to be had. All the different materials -- CMU, wood, steel moment frames, concrete, cold-formed steel, structural glass, structural aluminum -- all rolled into one project. And the wind and seismic analysis is crazy (which I love) with the odd shapes that a lot of these houses have. If not for the money consideration, I would do "rich guy houses" over a hospital, school, warehouse, or bridge any day. But from a business perspective, they are money losing propositions for medium and large size firms. As idecharlotte says, if you can get $150 per hour, that is very good. But the reality in a larger firm is the only way you are going to get is to have junior engineers doing the bulk of the project at $95/hr AND have them work a bunch of free overtime hours (which they won't do) to get the job done. Buy the time you add in the $175/hr for the senior engineer to basically redo the whole thing or all the stuff that the junior engineers didn't get right the first time around, you are well under $100/per hr. However, for a small one or two person firm, I guess it would be easy to get $125 per hour minimum if the persons have a lot of experience in custom residential and really know their stuff where they can just crank it out.
To answer the OP's question, our firm treats residential fee proposals like any other, hence we don't usually get any residential single-family work! If we can't get at least 1.5% of the estimated construction cost, we won't do it. However, I do at least one on my own time "on the side" each year because I love it so much.
It constantly amazes me how "rich guys" are willing to pay a contractor $1,500,000 for a custom home, but aren't willing to pay a structural engineer $20,000 to do the design work.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
now, the roof plan looks like MC Esher.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
I will say, it takes at least 3 years of nothing but residential to be able to crank them out that fast. I do not use spreadsheets or software, just my HP48 calculator on my Iphone and a few design tables. If you don't do it every day I could see how residential would not be profitable, but it works for me.
I have also done commercial work, bridges and high rises. I find residential to be far more enjoyable because it's far less "red tape" in the design process and turn around is quick.
www.idecharlotte.com
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
Anyway, I think the real issue is that often companies will quote to do more than the client wants or to work on types of structures that they are not fluent and efficient at designing.
idecharlotte seems to have the right idea about these things.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
I would support a new thread addressing some of Gooddeal's comments. I started to address them, but stopped at the one post.
ide-
Do you go through full calcs for everything? Have you ever been asked to submit calcs?
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
www.idecharlotte.com
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
I have often contemplated the same thing. If the sizing is wrong, does having calculations make you any less liable?
The only thing I would say is that you must have a good memory as I wouldnt remember all the point loads e.t.c.
Also, if you are delayed halfway through how do you remember how far you got and what you have checked?
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
I think if you're designing LVL's, steel beams, etc. in a complicated large residential home that eventually you will make a mistake that will come back to bite you.
There's no way you can design a complicated home properly and economically speeding through half baked quick calcs, not chasing loads through, recording them, etc. Further more when there is a change, something not built quite right, etc. it's cumbersome to not have decent calcs to reference and could further foster mistakes.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
BA
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
Personally, when I do a house I will not write every calc down, just the major ones though these are often more than what many would do in total.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
^unthoughtknown: There are many short cuts in beam design that can be taken to save time while arriving at the same answer. So to say it can't be done just means you haven't done it. I also find it more cumbersome to look through calculations than to reanalyze a situation should a change occur. I've developed a quick method of residential design that works, meets Code, and is profitable. That doesn't make it unprofessional, incorrect, or risky.
www.idecharlotte.com
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
Admittedly, the outcome could be different in other jurisdictions.
BA
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
Shoot I have to write them down and usually draw a picture to make sure that there is a proper load path for all my connections, doing a FBD always helps as I can see where the load is going.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
There you go again, givin it away. If you started drawing Expensive Body Diagrams, instead of FBD's, you could charge more and get really rich.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
There should be some sort of national code in the us on what the local authority is allowed to require regarding building permit submissions. They should not be allowed to tellll you how to do your job.
Though things can be just as bad over here where the local authority often employs a graduate engineer to check the calculations. I you make any shortcuts the are often not experienced to realise why and will demand a revised set.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
Sailsam- how did you prevent yourself from physically accosting the building dept guy? Or at least keep yourself from say "Are you $*@$*&@#! kidding me?" We should not be having non-engineers tell us how to do our job, if you don't like my drawings and calcs, hire a PE to do a peer review.
csd- I wonder if the chinese code is not just a culture reflection of how chinese education systems work. I have seen many specials on how they teach mostly by rote, which works great up until a point, but does not necessarily foster creative thinking and problem solving.
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
RE: Architect/Structural Fee Residential
I'm curious. Do you have produce drawings in CAD? Do you hand sketch the framing in? What about details? Are they in CAD or hand-drawn? General Notes? Schedules? How do you document the design?