i am VERY leery of anyone that wants a percentage of anything. and simply
put, the cost of the design has very little to do with the cost of the
build. i could design a very labor intensive addon, or specify higher cost
materials, but that doesnt mean its a better design or that it would
actually take more time to design it.

but to be honest; 100k for a 500 sq ft addon? if you think that sounds even
remotely reasonable you got money to burn and need not worry about the costs
anyway...

randy

"BRN" wrote in message
...
Hi all,

We are currently looking for an architect to help us design an addition to
our house. We are interested in 2 firms. Both are small, one is a purely
architectural firm, the other a design/build firm. The problem is that
estimates for the fees to design the addition are VERY different. I want
to
know if I was missing something?

The architectural firm's estimate is about $3000 for what they estimate is
66 hours of services to design a 3 story ~500sq' addition (which we are
estimating will cost $80-100K to build). The design/build firm is
charging
10% of construction costs for the design portion. With an estimated
$80,000-100,000 to build, their costs would be $8,000-$10,000. Up to 3x
the
architecture firm's price. Of course we could be vastly overestimating
the
cost of construction, so the cost of the design would be less.
Unfortunately, my experience is that one rarely OVER estimates the cost of
construction.

Am I missing something here? Is one vastly over or under charging? I
suppose we could get a 3rd quote to "break the tie"

We are in central Virginia.

TIA

Bart