Your Architect will help you negotiate and decide on which contractor to award the project to. S/he will help you vet contractors, and evaluate the completeness and correctness of bids. When all design drawings are ready, the Architect, with your authority, will look for contractors interested to bid on the construction of your home. The Architect will provide you with an initial Bill Of Materials, for a budgetary overview of the project. The Architect’s fee includes fees for the Structural Engineer, Sanitary Engineer, Mechanical Engineer, Electrical Engineer, and Electronics & Communications Engineer.Īll five engineers will be preparing the blueprints, forms, bill of materials, specifications, and analyses needed for bidding and for submission to the City Hall when applying for a building permit.
The Architect typically has in his/her team all the engineers needed for the design of your home.
The Architect’s fee is 10% of the total project cost, as mandated by the PH Architecture Act ( RA 9266). Once your architect is hired, collaborate with him/her, sit back, trust that you’ve made the right choice, and let him/her do what s/he does best. It is ideal to take note of the pointers stated above before signing this agreement, to make sure that you are engaging the services of an experienced, competent, and personable professional. The architect will only be able to work on design studies for your home once an official agreement/contract is finalised. S/he has to be someone you find it easy to communicate with. Remember, you will be working with him/her for at least a year (design + construction period). Pay a visit if necessary, and see if you’re a good fit. The best architects welcome clients into their place of work in the spirit of collaboration and transparency, and so it is important that you know where the architect’s physical office is located. Ask to speak to a couple of previous clients.īe wary about referrals from strangers, as these may merely be the result of “referral fees” and not of satisfactory service. Ask questions concerning budget, timeline, and your space requirements. Narrow down your selection to two or three architects whose work you find interesting, and get in touch with them to ask about previous work, past clients, and their design process. If you are not able to get referrals from family or friends, the best way is to search for one yourself through looking at portfolios and published work. Depending on size of lot, soil tests cost around 30,000 per hole.ĭeciding on which architect to hire may seem like a daunting task. It also ideal to have a Soil Bearing Test conducted, as the Structural Engineer will be needing this for the structural design of your home. Fees of Geodetic Engineers start at around Php10,000. The Geodetic Engineer will also determine the slope of the terrain, which is an important consideration especially for sloping sites. If there’s no available lot plan, you may engage the services of a Geodetic Engineer to have the lot surveyed and measured.
When planning to build a new house on a vacant property, make sure to have on-hand a copy of the TCT (title) or Lot Plan.