OT - CAD Software for Drafting House/Shop Plans

So my home based full time machining business venture is starting to gain traction and the wife and I are looking at building a house for the growing family and a shop for my business. We are looking at getting a few acres out in the county and building ourselves. Nothing fancy but not too small either (3+ bedroom + a in-law suit for a family member). Hoping to afford at least a 30x40 steel building for a shop as well.

We have yet to find any house plans that we like so we are exploring our options. I'm not sure if I want to hire someone to do the house plans or try and do them myself. None of the CAD software I have would be suitable so I'm looking at what software I could do the house and to my surprise I ran across some discussion of people using Rhino to draft architectural type drawings along with VisualARQ. My question is would Rhino be a waste of time to do drawings for a new house and shop? The thing is I am looking for an excuse to buy Rhino for my business already.

I don't know the first thing about building a house let alone designing one that the same goes for all of my other ventures.

I used a seat of Chief Architect a few years back. Very powerful stuff and very easy to use. Right now they are offering a free trial.

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/

Paul

My $.02

I did my own house plans, and it was a lot of fun. I used AutoCAD, and it's been my observation that most architects use it as well.

When you submit your plans, they will need to be approved by building and safety. Sometimes the City/County will subcontract plan checking to a private company. In my fucked up county, they don't charge a flat fee for a building permit, they charge by the second. They log every second a county asshole spends on your case and they multiply that by several hundred dollars per hour and send you a bill.

Having said that, when you submit your plans drafted by Mr. Enthused Homeowner the plan checkers are going to drag their asses and piss and moan about BS. (Very similar to when a machine shop owner gets a blueprint drawn by an amateur engineer)

Long story short, a licensed Architect will cost you less that what you'll end up paying plan check if you do it yourself.

LockNut said:

I used a seat of Chief Architect a few years back. Very powerful stuff and very easy to use. Right now they are offering a free trial.

https://www.chiefarchitect.com/

Paul

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+1 I bought the full commercial version 10+ years ago and thought it was awesome, it looks even better now. The DIY version was sold by Broderbund for $100 or so, it was also surprisingly powerful. Allows you to do walkthroughs of your design, etc. I believe CA sells a DIY version direct now.

If I was building I'd draw what I wanted in one of these and have an architect fix it for me.

Larry Dickman said:

My $.02

I did my own house plans, and it was a lot of fun. I used AutoCAD, and it's been my observation that most architects use it as well.

When you submit your plans, they will need to be approved by building and safety. Sometimes the City/County will subcontract plan checking to a private company. In my fucked up county, they don't charge a flat fee for a building permit, they charge by the second. They log every second a county asshole spends on your case and they multiply that by several hundred dollars per hour and send you a bill.

Having said that, when you submit your plans drafted by Mr. Enthused Homeowner the plan checkers are going to drag their asses and piss and moan about BS. (Very similar to when a machine shop owner gets a blueprint drawn by an amateur engineer)

Long story short, a licensed Architect will cost you less that what you'll end up paying plan check if you do it yourself.

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Certainly. But nothing wrong with designing it yourself first, getting all the things you like incorporated, then submitting to a licensed architect to check and finish.

Paul

LockNut said:

Certainly. But nothing wrong with designing it yourself first, getting all the things you like incorporated, then submitting to a licensed architect to check and finish.

Paul

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Exactly, that's kinda what I was getting at. Here's a tip on how I came up with my design. At the time there was a building boom, so they were throwing up cracker boxes everywhere. I'd go around on weekends looking at models, and making notes about what I liked and disliked about each house. Room sizes, bathroom and kitchen layouts etc. Then, I'd make a couple measurements inside the house for scale reference. When I got home, I'd scan the floorplans in, covert it to vectors, and scale it to a known size. Then I could cut all the rooms out on cardstock and mix and match things on the coffee table.

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions guys. I have heard nothing but good things about Chief Architect. That being said I'm really itching for an excuse to get and learn Rhino as it would be a good asset to my business. I'm going to start playing around with the VisualARQ demo tonight. If anyone knows a reason this software is not capable of making a set of construction plans to be approved please chime in.

I think the point made about being just as much hassle and $ having someone fix your screw ups is well founded. That being said I think I'm going to do the initial drafting for my own enjoyment and personal development even if I end up having a professional draftsman re-draw the whole thing.