Day 23: Who designed this thing?

More lumber arrived today, but that wasn't the most significant event of the day.

Cheryl and I poured over a new version of the plans that our architect delivered Tuesday. There are some odd changes and inaccuracies, but nothing that can't be corrected. The builders have been frustrated by the lack of information in our plans, or, as in the case of today, problems.

Problem #1

Mike called this morning and said that there was a problem with the plans in that they call for an 8' tall garage door in each bay, but they also call for 4 25-foot LVL beams to support the second floor and for these beams to hang down into the garage space far enough so that the 8' garage door wouldn't be able to open. Brilliant.

So we've gone back and forth with the structural engineer and architect multiple times today, trying to resolve a problem that should have been handled in the plans correctly the first time.

No, I don't want to put a post in the garage so we can have a smaller beam, thus giving up what we asked for in our design to compensate for incorrect design.

No, I don't want to pay my builder more to do more complicated work that he figured on based on our incorrect plans.

No, I don't want my builder to shoulder the cost.

I want plans that are correct, without dumb mistakes. Too late for that... at least they were expensive.

Problem #2

Another issue that I inquired about today relates to our second floor, where there is a reflected ceiling for the master bedroom and study, but they only way you'd know that is to look at the page titled "Electrical plan - Reflected ceiling plan". Yep, the reflected ceiling information is in there, but not in the structural plans to specify what the framing for the non-reflected ceiling is, not in the second floor plan, just in the "electrical and reflected ceiling plan". Have I asked who eats the up charge for lousy plans?

Problem #3

I also found out that the structural plans say that the large window in our room can have a box header, but Bryan, not trusting that asked the structural guy who agreed that this is a problem, but we can just replace the box header with LVL's. LVL's are expensive and weren't budgeted for so based on not being called for in the plans and will cost more. Again, if there is an error in the plans, do we eat it?

Pissed.