The following questions are asked often. As a way to answer these questions quickly and effectively, we have compiled a list of these common questions and our corresponding answers so you can understand how to proceed with purchasing house plans online.
If you have questions, please read through our FAQ and if you still need some assistance, you can email us or give us a call by visiting our contact page.
Absolutely! We would love to modify the plan for you. Just give us a call or send us an email with your ideas and we will give you an estimate for modifying the plans. If for some reason, you’d prefer to have a local draftsman or architect modify the plan instead of us, that’s ok too….just buy the plan and they can make the modifications for you.
Please keep in mind that even though they modified the plan, we still own it. It’s part of our copyright. Seems weird we know, but that’s how it works and it’s the only way to protect our plans from being hijacked by folks that just don’t believe in doing the right thing.
It’s our competitive advantage! We’ve developed our system and drawings over the last 20 plus years. They are worth a lot more than the price you pay for the right to build the house once. We love to modify our plans and feel that we can do it better than anyone else at an extremely affordable price (you wouldn’t take your car to the dentist for a tune up would you?).
We don’t want you to be disappointed in having someone else modify our houses. We’ve seen it too many times! Very few firms can match the quality of design that comes with an Allison Ramsey House Plan. Trust us!
Yes you can! We are happy to work with your engineer and share our electronic file with them in order for them to do their work. We will have them contact us and sign an agreement with us on the proper use of the file (they are not allowed to modify it or use it for any other project than yours). Once they sign the agreement and acknowledge they understand this, we will send them the file. It’s not allowed to be shared.
Wow… that’s a lot of questions, you should probably just call us but we’ll do our best to give you some basic info and process here. Cost are dependent upon so many factors that there is no way we could give you an honest answer (and neither can anyone else that is trying to sell you house plans!) So here is what we suggest you do.
Ask a couple of builders in your area what is typical for construction cost for where you are building. Once you’ve got a general idea, find a plan that you like on our site within the overall parameters you are working with (we suggest using square footage at this stage). After you have found a plan or two, purchase the study sets from our website. The study set is the perfect tool for getting your budget established. The study set is a reduced size (11×17) copy of the floor plans and elevations of the house you are considering (It’s not ok for you to use them to build by the way, you have to buy the full set to do that!) Share that study set with a few builders that you are considering using to build your house.
Along with the study set, tell them what your quality expectations are for the interior of the house (type of flooring you may want, quality level of appliances, type of trim, etc.) and ask them to give you a budget (not a bid) based upon their experiences building that level of quality. If you get three or four guys to do this for you, you’ll not only have a very good idea of what the house is going to cost, you’ll have a wonderful introduction to a couple of builders on a very friendly non-competitive basis that will give you a much better indication of what type of builder they actually are.
We’ve done this for many years. It works! Once you’re feeling more confident about proceeding forward, purchase the plans and start your final bidding process. Once you’re done, don’t forget to send us pictures of our baby! We love baby pictures!
If you purchase a plan online with us, we will email you the construction documents in a PDF format that you can use. The beauty of this is you can make copies as you need them. You don’t have to buy a bunch of copies and hope you have the right amount. When you need one….print one.
Typically you will only need to print a few full size copies and then most guys can do their work off of an 11×17 print of the same thing. If you want us to make you some, we’ll be happy to. But by the time you pay us and the shipping, you’d be better off to do them local.
Our plans are typically “builder’s sets”. They include general information and specifications, a foundation plan, a roof plan, floor plans, elevations, wall sections, details and an electrical plan. They do not include structural engineering. That should be done locally to make sure you’re meeting local codes. Each jurisdiction is different.
While it may be true… if you didn’t buy the plan, it’s illegal. You have to purchase the right to build the house even if someone else draws the plans. We are not selling you plans… we are selling the house design (intellectual property). The plans are just how we communicate what you are building.
None. We haven’t run blueprints since 1995. We make black and white copies today on a copy machine. They don’t look as cool, but they make way more sense!
Unfortunately not. We try to upload everything to the website as we get them. If you don’t see it….we probably don’t have it yet. Sorry 🙁
Probably not. We rarely have any open models. Most of our homes are done for individuals. Occassionally we will have a model home available but it is not often and its probably not the one you want to see.
If we have any open currently, they will be posted on our business page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AllisonRamseyArchitects/.
No we do not. Do you really need one? Typically the builder will work with the supplier to produce this. If you’re planning on building the house yourself we’d recommend you take the plans to a local materials supplier to develop this.