3. Architect or Draughtsman

As a professional, you will definitely want to have an architect to design your house. But to save cost, some people will only use a draughtsman for the design and later on, the draughtsman will get an architect approval. It might be cheaper to engage a draughtsman. However it have its own pros and cons. A draughtsman will mainly rely on his or her experience. He doensn't have the knwoledge of an architect who will think in more comprehensive manner, correlating with the winds, direction of the sun and ventilation for your house. To engage an architect service, the typical charge is 10% of the total cost of the house. If your house cost RM300,000, the fees will be RM30,000. Very simple isn't it!!! This includes monitoring during the construction of the house. A draughtsman service may only cost you RM5000 to RM6000. As for me, I initially used a draughtsman. However after we discussed for a few weeks, he cannot give us any idea or input. All the input came from us. No suggestion or comments at all. We gave up finally and search for an architect. My architect is a very senior person with experience of more than 20 years experience in the field. The only problem with him is that he is a bit 'grandiose' in his plans. The initial plan of the house was about 5000 square feet in total. I gave him our budget of around RM250,000 maximum for the house. In the end, after 3 to 4 months of discussion, we mange to trim the size of the house to about 4500 square feet (including the porch which is bout 700 square feet). He charges me around RM10,000. We never regret paying him that amount. This is because we heard some bad experiences from some of our friends who used draughtsman services. One of my friend who used a draughtsman service had a major problem. The contractor had to make a major change in the house plan due to some major defects. When the house was being built, it was found out that there is no electrical or wiring planning in the package. When he asked for it from the draughtsman, he was asked to forked out another RM1500. In total he had to pay around RM6000 for the services. So, the moral of this story, use and architect service (a qualified one) for your house. This is the most important step before you even start to build a house.