Potential_Custmr

I have a project I am working on and am interested in both services and training. It is residential and the lot is in northern California. It is in seismic zone D2. I am hoping to find someone with experience and ideally an engineer who uses CA. Not sure how to ferret out the best candidate or what the pricing range should be. All input would be appreciated. The design idea is very rough at this point. The lot has a great view for the back (west), right side (northwest), and the southwest sides. The front would look into the slope. The west side has ~200' of view frontage, the north ~70' and the south ~30'. Ideally the candidate would be up to date in the IRC and CBC. Del Norte County familiarity would also be a plus. If this looks like something you could help with, let me know.

I have been working away at this project and am now trying to decide on some potential designers, but I would like to ask if some of you can give me ideas for selection questions. I haven't done project management in sometime and this is not an area of my expertise so I have large learning curve and am not even sure of what to be looking for in a designer and how to decide between designers. I am thinking at this point of picking one and getting to a certain point and tapping additional designers to review the project in their areas of expertise, but I am not sure of what to ask. At his point I am thinking I want one that has CA X10 and experience with CA of some minimal amount. I also want someone who isn't too busy to work on the project regularly as I have the site and the funding and just need to get a preliminary design to give to the structural engineer for the seismic base isolation system design. Can some of you give me input as to what I should be looking for... I had thought that a building designer in close proximity to the site was best, but several have suggested that site proximity is not as important as it has been in the past. I guess I am asking what you would recommend for criteria to me if I was your best friend or a brother. I don't want to be ridiculous, but I want the right designer for this project and ideally several plan reviewers to help the designer and I catch errors and exhaust all the best practice and ideas to create an excellent set of plans. Thanks for all your help so far... I have been hesitant to pull the trigger on this phase because I want my ducks lined up and not to have waste or a mismatch with my designer/team. I am looking forward to your sage advice and recommendations. Robert

Thanks for the help!

ACADuser... I really haven't used any other CAD/design software.

Thnak you for asking this question as it helps me with mine as well.

Let me start by thanking you all for your time and input. parkwest asked a question I have been giving a lot of thought to... wouldn't it be better to just to hire someone. I think it would be if I could find the right "someone". I am open to the idea, but I haven't been able to take it past the initial stages. I am compiling a list of potential sources though. I have been a bit hesitant to pursue it too deeply because this home, I hope to be Resilient. I mean by Resilient the following... livable and useable after events that normally for people out of their homes or make them unusable. In making it Resilient I believe I will need to minimize the materials that are susceptible to water damage, fire damage, mold, mildew, termites, as well as other things, which probably means a very limited use of wood. In short there may need to be a lot of cementatious products/components. Still I am very open to the idea of someone with the expertise and an enthusiastic vision for Resilence being the Designer and Ideally the Designer/Builder/Engineer. Those are a lot of hats to wear well. Anyway, that is an attempt at explaining why I have hesitated going down that path. I will offer on emore anecdotal reason. My brother and sister-in-law are just finishing a retirement in Colorado (it should be finished in November). The had a beautiful idea they found in a magazine, however, the designer/builder they chose, who has a great reputation, steered them away from their dream and I feel they "settled". This is a bit sad in my mind as it was a dream they had and I think with the "right" designer/builder they probably cold have realized it. I hope not to be in such a position, but it may happen to me too. That all said, I wish I could find the right designer and I am still open to and prefer that direction. In the meantime I am trying to learn all I can and trying to make sometype if preliminary decision as to whether SP or CA would be the best fit for this project. ParkWest did mention the cost of a computer and I have thought on that too..... as I understand it most of the graphics and CPU power is need for rendering especially the rendering of lighting. I think what I have will be sufficient for 2D drawings.. I have a 2017 27" 5K Retina iMac with a 4.2GHz QuadCore Hyperthreading CPU with 64GB RAM and a Radeon Pro 580 with 8GB VRAM and a 1TB NVMe SSD (runs at around 2000MBs read and write) which is probably adequate for everything that CA can do since CA runs as a native Mac app. It is in running SP in a virtual machine that I see perfrmance issues and then only with rendering. If I run it in Bootcamp it improves, but the rendering demands a lot of GPU and CPU resources. I think if I wanted to eliminate that problem I would have to go with the NVIDIA 1080Ti or the new RTX 2080Ti. Anyawy for 2D plans ethier should work with my current machine. If I am wrong on that please let me know. Ideally I would find someone in the area of the lot that is a Resilience enthusiast. Right now in trying to learn with the trials I am trying to figure out what i need to create a plot plan that is accurate and usable and how to create a material that I feel is key to my goals, namely a particular brand of ICF that is 24" wide by 8 in high x 12" deep. I haven't read all the replies yet so I will do try to get to that next. Thakns again. Robert

Hello, I am trying to understand the available design products available. I am trying to design a retirement home and afriend who is now building his seventh home (7th) and was a commercial developer years ago recommended SoftPlan, however, in my research I came across Chief Architect and am wondering about it. Can anyone on the forum connect me with CA users who are familiar enough with both programs that are willing to give me their take on them. I am especially interesting in input from CA designers/builders that do design work for others. Thank you for reading this and for any help you can provide in advance, Robert

Hi, I am trying to find someone who uses Chief Architect that is familiar with the ShelterWorks FasWall ICF product and has actually used it in a design. Can anyone on the forum help me? Thank you in advance for reading this and helping, Robert

I am trying to find someone who uses Chief Architect that is familiar with the IBHS Fortified for Safer Living (FFSL) code plus specification. Can anyone on the forum help me? Thank you in advance for reading this and helping, Robert