Architect drawing home addition by hand

additionArchitectureplanningplanning-permission

I am planning to expand master bedroom and hired an architect to draw the plan. What I learnt is that he drew diagram by hand and not using CAD. He is an old guy. But I am wondering if I should be concerned now? Given this age, everything has to be exactly accurate and submit as CAD diagram for the city permit. Does it matter?

Best Answer

I have worked in construction in Indianapolis, and this is my experience:

Hand drawn drawings will not be rejected by the permit authority. I drew my own plans for the update to my home: Hand drawn, in pencil.

Hand drawn drawings will be more scrutinized by the permit authority.

When submitting the plans, I had to be ready to answer more questions than usual. I have submitted plans that were drawn by engineers for commercial construction (yes, some hand drawn!), and they were received and stamped in seconds. For my plans, the receiving person looked at the drawings and did not see an engineer stamp. At that point, they asked if I had a general contractor, to which I answered that I was overseeing the construction directly.

  • They asked about greenway requirements (amount of grass compared to building/concrete covered area) to which I pointed to the water drainage page.
  • They asked about whether there was an increase in water drainage to the city to which I pointed to the fact that the house footprint didn't change.
  • They asked about where the spoils (dirt being excavated) would go, and how that would change drainage and I explained that all spoils were moving off-site to a commercial greenhouse nearby.
  • They asked about the new footers under the house; how they stick out four inches toward a neighbors yard where the setback distance was already too close (according to current standards) and claimed that I needed to change that. I stated that current setback fulfilled what was required by regulation because the current setback was grandfathered in, and that they should look at the eave of the house to see that the building line was the eave line, not the wall line, so the four inches of footer would still be under eave.

This went on for 15 minutes.

All-in-all, I had construction know-how to answer these questions and in the end they had no grounds to reject it. I just warn that in some areas you may have to be ready to defend hand-drawn plans that are not engineer signed.

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