Detailed plans - architect vs builder

[OBface]

Just a bit of advice needed.

We finally have planning permission for our side extension/loft conversion and questioning whether it's best to get detailed plans for costing drawn up by our architect or a builder.

Has anyone experience that suggests one route is better than the other?

Thanks!

Would you ask an architect to lay bricks or tile your roof?

As a general rule, builders know surprisingly little about Building Regulations. and still less about Planning.

You don't need an Architect, necessarily (an Architectural Technologist is actually more appropriate for that sort of work), but a builder will usually have neither the skills nor the knowledge to do it effectively.

Once you have planning permission, ask your architect to produce building control drawings. Then give those to the builder for their quote.

Building control drawings will specify things like foundation depths, wall spec, etc etc. The builder charges you based on how much work the architect has proposed.

Thanks this is really helpful! I thought much the same but my husband isn’t keen on getting our architect (who has been great!) to do this piece of work, largely to do with cost.

I’m trying to stress that paying more now and getting good quality plans will save both time and money in the future.

The process for Building Regulations drawings is largely a matter of adding extra detail to the Planning drawings your architect has already produced.

If the drawings are done using CAD (as 95% of architects and architectural technologists use, these days), then it's a much quicker and cheaper process for whoever holds the CAD files, than for someone drawing everything up again from scratch.