Engineering Firm Bids / Estimates

Turns out this is going to run about $5k to get

• water runoff calculations, 
• impervious coverage calculations, and
• updates site survey 

Needs to be done... but that's not chump change.

On top of all this, there is a bit of history here that needs explaining.  As it turns out, the previous owners had worked with Houtman in the past to get things rolling on their build.  For whatever reason, that build never happened, but Houtman did the initial work to get the site surveyed and basic plans ready for submission to the township.  It seems that since the job never went anywhere, they never completed it - and never got paid.

This is where we come in.  If we go to a new Engineering team, Momenee, we get someone local that has worked with Tony.  If we go with Houtman, we get the benefit of any work they had done on the previous owner's dime.    We had some issues connecting, quickly, with Houtman and decided to reach out to Momenee for the work.  Along the way it was determined that we might be able to get the previous work anyway.  So, down that road we went.

Ends up, this kind of thing is very frowned upon, and we ruffled (un-intentionally) a few feathers.  After a few conversations we ironed things out - let the water under the bridge and engaged Houtman for the complete package.

Makes everyone happy in the end. Unfortunately we had to jettison Momenee Associates in the shuffle. They are a good team, and I would recommend them from the honest and professional stances they took.

Anyway, 5k gets us Township Ready documents.

Cha-chin... $5k it is.

Engineering Firms

One of the rather significant things we did not know about in this process was that of an Engineering Firm. Our Architect, Tony, did of course, but it was new to us.  Seems that you need a full engineering survey to help determine things as complex as water run off and percolation rates.

To put it simply, they need to calculate how much of the ground are covering because of the fact that your house will be preventing the soil form absorbing precipitation.  Pretty big deal, in our case, as our house is covering a significant portion of our lot.  Really, they have to account for every drop of water that is re-directed by our home, and then provide a way to make sure it stays on our lot and not pushed off into the street or a neighboring lot.

Based on some suggestions, we went out to Momenee Associates and Houtman Engineering.

We'll see how much this runs us.

Virtual Model

Things are starting to come together!

The 'Final' Plan...

This is it... this is going to be our house!  The garage works the way we want it to, the tree is safe, the floorplan is perfect for us. 

Next up, virtual model. :)

High Resolution PDF : Site Map, 1st Floor, 2nd Floor

You want to park a car too?!?

As we think we're nearing completion on the inside of the house, we started to look on the outside.  Garage, in specific.

The issue is that we want to be able to pull in to the driveway / garage.  To exit, we want to back out of the garage, and be able to drive out forward on to the street.  That poses a bit of a problem with both the Japanese Maple tree and the width of the lot itself.

So, make those kind of concerns known to an architect... this is what you get:

attached are various driveway / garage schemes. schemes b thru d have alterations to the floor plan.

scheme a –

current scheme, van reverses into garage and goes out forward.

scheme b-

garage gets shallow but longer with storage nooks, van goes in forward and reverses all the way out to the street.

scheme c-

angled parking, forward in and reverse out to street. potentially weird roof.

scheme d-

forward in reverse all the way out to street or reverse in and forward out to street.

none of the schemes are ideal. it depends if you are comfortable with backing out to the street. I supposed if I had to choose it would be scheme b. it has the least impact on the tree and still achieves the entry court that I was after. I haven’t studied them in form yet but scheme b looks like it would have the most interest from the street.

if you want I could have a scheme with the garage doors facing the street tomorrow.

we probably should have a conference call to discuss.

tony

Garage Scheme A

Garage Scheme B

Garage Scheme C

Garage Scheme D

Evolving plan...

The really interesting thing about this whole process is the fact that Tony will apply some creative tweak to a design, based on our comments and it takes us down a totally new path.

For example, based on the previous plan, we wanted to make sure there was a closet in the office area in case we ever needed to use it as a guest room.  And, what we got back was a wonderful tweak... shown below.