CHAPTER
13

Working with Design Professionals

In This Chapter

• Knowing when to hire a design professional
• Making sure you get a great designer/architect that can bring your tiny house vision to reality
• Learning how to read the fine print in a contract

If you have one too many peas on your plate and can’t imagine adding “design my tiny house” to your multi-page to-do list, fret not! There are some amazing and experienced tiny house design professionals out there that would love to help bring your tiny house dreams to life.

Finding the right design professional, whether it be a designer or architect, is an amazing feeling and something we hope to help you find. In this chapter, we talk about when and how to hire a professional, the best ways to save money when hiring a pro, and how to make sure the contract protects you. We also introduce you to some engineering concepts you’ll need to understand before the design process begins.

When to Hire a Pro

Even if you’re fairly certain you want to hire a designer/architect, we suggest you read Chapter 12 and follow the design exercises as far as you can. There are two reasons for this:

• You might find you actually do have what it takes to design your dream tiny house (in which case: cha-ching … you’ve just saved yourself loads of money!).
• The more you know about your needs and wants for your tiny house, the more effectively you’ll be able to share that information with the design professional. This saves you hours of time, which translates to you saving money.

As soon as you make the decision to hire a design professional, you should start your search for the perfect match. Even though there are numerous tiny house–specific designers and architects out there, there’s often more work available than professionals have time to complete in a timely manner.

TINY QUOTE

“You can use an eraser on the drafting table or a sledge hammer on the construction site.”
–Frank Lloyd Wright

You can also consider expanding your options by hiring a professional who hasn’t designed a tiny house before. There are, indeed, some THOWs-specific details that are helpful to know in advance of designing one. However, a quality design professional should be able to easily research and adopt them.

Ask for Referrals

The best way to find out about a designer’s reputation is by asking for referrals. If you can’t find references within social media circles or via people you know, ask the design professional directly for some references. Be sure to call all the listed references and ask them the following five questions:

1. Did you enjoy working with the design professional and would you use them again on another project?

2. Was their communication direct and clear?

3. Were they easy to reach?

4. Did they complete the job on schedule and on budget?

5. Would you recommend them?

TINY TIP

No matter how amazing someone seems on his website or how good his advertising may be, nothing says more about a professional than personal referrals. Because there are so many social media sites dedicated to tiny houses these days, an obvious place to begin the hunt for recommendations is in those groups.

If a reference seems lackluster, be sure to ask follow up questions. This is important for two main reasons.

• First, maybe the client and design professional were simply not a good fit. The reasons the client was unhappy may have been more to do with a personality clash than with an inherent flaw with the design professional. In that case, just make sure the same things that annoyed the client aren’t huge triggers for you.
• Secondly, a longer conversation may surface details about the designer/architect that would be challenging for you as well. Perhaps they have an approach to working that you wouldn’t appreciate either. It’s always good to get the bigger story when possible.

Interview Multiple Design Professionals

If at all possible, you’ll want to shop around a little bit and connect with at least three design professionals to see what options are available. You might find that you end up loving the first one you spoke with the most, but it’s always good to make sure you’ve looked at multiple possibilities.

When interviewing design professionals, ask them the obvious questions, like “what’s your experience?” and “what do you charge?” Don’t be afraid to ask tough questions and expect good answers.

Here’s a list of potential questions for you to ask the design professional during the interview:

1. What do you find to be the biggest challenges when designing tiny houses as opposed to conventional houses?

2. I want to know how difficult making changes will be along the way. Do you draft your designs by hand or on a computer?

3. Do you have experience with off-grid living?

4. Of your tiny house projects, how many were designed to be truly movable and how many were stationary?

5. Do you have experience incorporating holding tanks for gray, black, and fresh water in a design?

6. How many other projects do you have going right now?

7. Are you available on weekends and holidays for conversations?

8. Do you need to make a site visit or can you design from a distance?

9. Do you work with an engineer that understands the unique challenges of a THOWs?

10. Can we set up a clear path of communication in case there are challenges that come up between us during the design process?

11. What services are included in your price and what details would add cost to my project? How many revisions do I get with that cost?

12. How long do you think it will take for my tiny house design to be completed?

The Importance of Communication

Once you find a great design professional, you’re ready for the next step: setting up the communication pathway. You’ll talk quite a bit with your designer/architect, so having some contact parameters is a good idea.

TINY TIP

We suggest at least one weekly scheduled progress call. We recommend that you schedule a weekly appointment to fall on the same day and time so that it becomes a part of your weekly routine and consistency is kept.

Let’s talk a little bit about how important honest communication is. It’s easy to do when you love what your designer/architect is presenting and everyone is giving each other high fives. It’s not nearly as much fun, though, when there’s a challenge. The longer you wait to initiate a conversation in those situations, the sooner your molehill will turn into a mountain. If something isn’t right, speak about it as soon as possible.

Here are some tried-and-true strategies that can be applied to challenging communications. We have personally used them ourselves in our years of working in the building industry.

• Don’t speak from a place of anger or frustration. Speak by stating facts. Emotions won’t likely help get your point across.
• Actually listen to the other person. Don’t just wait for your turn to speak.
• When the person is done speaking, repeat back to them what you heard, “I heard you say …”.
• Let them agree or disagree with your statement of what you heard. If you were right, you’re on the same page. If you misheard them, allow them the opportunity to explain their position again.

Your efforts will hopefully be rewarded by a simple and easy solution to the initial challenge and if all goes well, you’ll be back to high fives in no time.

What to Pay

There are so many variables when it comes to design costs. These variables make it difficult to determine a fair price. That said, there are some basic parameters to keep in mind when looking for a design professional. We want to be clear that we’re only discussing common price ranges here, so be sure to talk directly to your potential designers and architects to get a sense of what their current rates are.

You might have noticed that we’ve been talking mostly about design professionals and not designers or architects. That’s because there are differences between the two, and how much they charge, which we will discuss here.

Designers

There are two primary differences between designers and architects:

• Designers typically don’t spend time on the jobsite overseeing a build. Instead, they focus only on the design portion of a project.
• Designers typically charge less than architects. We have worked with a lot of designers and architects in our careers, and we have found outstanding ones with both titles.

Designers can charge less because they don’t have the same overhead and start-up costs as an architect. Designers aren’t required to have the same amount of schooling and they don’t need to pay for the same licensing fees that an architect must.

If you look online or read through design forums, you’ll see that the average cost for work done by designers is between $0.50 and $2.50 per square foot. If you apply those averages to a house with very little square footage though, you’ll see that a custom tiny house design could cost as little as $75. We can’t imagine a professional designer creating a beautiful, custom set of plans for that little.

TINY WARNING

The reality is that the smaller the house, the harder it is to design, so you should expect to pay more per square foot. Any adjustment to one part of the plan heavily impacts the rest of the layout. It’s not unusual for a design professional to have to start from scratch several times along the way.

Designers charge, on average, anywhere from $45 to $80 or more per hour for their services. If you have a clear idea of what you want your plan to look like and just need someone to actually draw it up for you, hiring a designer by the hour may be the most cost effective solution. If you decide to work on a per square foot basis with a designer, you should expect to pay anywhere from $6 to $9 per square foot.

We recognize that these prices end up being close to those on conventionally sized house, but the reality is that designing a tiny house can easily take as much time, if not more. Tiny houses present special challenges, which take a lot of creativity and especially time to resolve.

Architects

As previously mentioned, architects are more expensive than designers and for good reason. They’ve paid for years of schooling, must maintain specific licensing within their state, and are certified to perform both design and engineering services for your home.

We don’t recommend architects over designers or vice versa. Instead, we recommend you find the best person to work with within your budget. Hire the person that sees your vision most clearly and that has the best ability to translate your wants and needs into a full set of architectural plans.

TINY TIP

Here are the payment options for design professionals:

• Cost per square foot: $6 to $9 (designer), $8 to $12 (architect), depending on their experience
• Cost per hour: $45 to $80 or more (designer), $65 to $175 or more (architect), depending on their experience
• Percentage of construction costs: 8 to 15 percent (more common for architects than it is for designers)
• Combination: some designers and architects combine cost per square foot, cost per hour, and percentage of construction costs to create either a more fluid contract or a project-based, fixed-price contract

Similar to designers, architects typically charge for their projects in one of three or four ways. For a tiny house project, they might charge per square foot ($8-$12 per square foot), by a percentage of the total construction cost (5-20 percent), or per hour ($125-$200 per hour for a principle architect or $50-$65 for an architect intern).

In some cases, it makes sense to combine all of these options in a contract. You can include aspects that will be billed per hour, others that are charged per square foot, and others that will be charged based on a percentage of construction costs. These types of contracts are created to protect both the architect and client on projects that have some areas of stability but also some areas that contain unknowns.

Reading the Fine Print

How many times have you signed a contract without reading the fine print? Let’s be honest, many—if not most of us, are guilty as charged. The trouble is that in a contract, and in a court of law, every single word counts—including the itty-bitty, tiny ones.

As much as long contracts can be overwhelming, they can create clarity for all parties involved. Nobody wants confusion during the job, so having everything laid out ahead of time is ideal. Including details such as deadlines, payment, and other important terms can prevent a lot of frustration down the line.

Confirm whether or not site visits are included in the arrangement. For foundation-based, conventional homes, it’s common for architects to make weekly site visits to check on progress. Perhaps they are willing to do so for a THOWs as well. These visits can be very useful, but they come at a price. Having an extra set of professional eyes on your tiny house build, especially if you’ll be the general contractor, may very well be worth the money.