Hill House

This morning I took a quick inventory financially on exactly what we’re doing.  I’ve had a few people request to see some actual numbers on what a house like this costs.  Due to the nature of trade discounts and resourceful shopping, I feel it would be a bit of a disservice to share information that isn’t true to a real world setting.  Having said that, I will share our time investment so far and explain a little as to what this time is spent doing.

After a very quick initial design study, we had a couple of foundation / excavation subs give us preliminary pricing.  Everyone was somewhere in the $250k – $300k range just for excavation and TEMPORARY shoring…these numbers did not include the actual foundation.  As this number was far above our budget, we have been working back and forth with the structural engineer, geotechnical engineer and excavation sub to do a detailed analysis of the most cost effective direction.  While the cheapest solution is still over our budget, the solution is 23 solder piles driven into the hill at about 5′ on center with wood cribbing spanning between them.  This allows the excavator to make steep cuts, starting at the top of the site and installing cribbing as he works his way down.  after the cuts are complete, anchors get driven into the hill, then the temporary cribbing gets sprayed with concrete – which becomes the permanent retaining wall.  We don’t know exactly where the cost will end up yet, but it will be somewhere between $100k-$200k.

To date, we’ve paid approximately $16k in structural engineering fees (our original contract was much less) and approximately $3k in geotechnical engineering fees (our original contract was around $1,500).  I won’t disclose the fee I’ve paid my office to perform work, but I will say we’re in at about 460 total hours.  The time has been spent on design, going through land use review to increase the height by about 10′, and getting the drawing set about 10% through CD’s (detailed floor plans, detailed roof plan, detailed site plan, preliminary sections, preliminary elevations, preliminary electrical plans – no interior elevations yet).  I’d estimate before we submit for permit, we should be in the 500 hour range.  I know there are several ways to structure an agreement with an architect, but regardless, it all comes down to the time spent…even if they quote you a percentage of construction cost – it’s still ultimately about the time spent.