From Small Job to Total House Renovation Review ARCHITECT needed

In reply to SVreX+DUKE+OHSCrifle:

Got it. I am not trying to be vague. Just trying hard to not let my industrial/commercial/Government building knowledge get me too far off track from what is reasonable.

I was not assuming that the drawings would allow anything to be cheaper, moreso to help my family determine if we can break down the work into 2-3+ phases or have to do it all at once.

I was expecting more the building drawings to show the structure and MEP so that we can understand if we want all the electrical replaced should we also just do the plumbing or maybe only do the north side of the building plumbing and all the electrical. The duct runs I don't think I need to be changed. The house has a rather nice duct system with dampers all over the basement to control flow. I know that no matter the work I will be removing plaster walls here and there. Just don't want to lose the wood paneling or stonework.

Maybe I need to rethink how folks do replacement of Electrical and Plumbing in old homes today. My thoughts were that the drains would stay as is. So only supply lines would be replaced. Most would be abandoned in place and the new plastic supply lines put in their place. For Electrical, without some drawings I only have an idea that there are a few sections of the house that have overlapping walls which would allow cord to be drawn all the way up. Some stuff I know will just have to be retained as is or lost (IE the front door bell wiring is encased in the stone masonry and power to the detached garage is now under the rather fresh 5-10 year old concrete apron.)

I think the jist is that we need to data to plan what we want to do.

Anth

If you still have my Phone # give me a call it is what I do for a living and I may be able to help.

Shameless plug for my company. My Company

Interesting company profile Dean! Sounds like fun. I tried building envelope consulting for 18 months but came back to a big global architecture firm because I didn't like juggling 50 projects (no matter how interesting they were).

To Advan046..

What you want to do makes good sense. Having accurate scale drawings is a great way to plan projects. I sometimes think it'd be worth starting a side business doing what you want, in the neighborhood. It wouldn't be enough to make a living doing it myself, but decent extra income. Just measuring and drawing an "as-built" of a house, for most places I could draw good plans in somebody's kitchen in a few hours.