custom home design calgary

Custom Home Design

Custom home design is a service offered by many high-end builders in Calgary and in the surrounding areas. Custom home design ensures that your custom home is built to specifications, and provides the homeowner with a visual representation of their idea, before the plans are put into place. When designing a home, there are a few terms to understand that are included most designer’s custom home design plans:

  • Cover Sheet: The cover sheet includes the general notes and building code information, design standards and structural materials specifications required to construct your home.
  • Schedule Sheet: The schedule sheet includes the window, roof and foundation ventilation schedules, insulation and vapor barrier specifications, and exhaust fan ventilation schedule.
  • Detail Sheet: The detail sheet shows building components at large scale as required to explain construction of footings, foundation walls, concrete slabs, framed floors and walls, posts, beams, insulation, eaves, roofs, vents, stairs, skylights, and connections.
  • Foundation Plan Sheet: The foundation plan sheet shows the layout of the crawl space, walk-out basement or slab foundation. The foundation plan includes all necessary notes, dimensions, concrete walls, footing pads, posts, beams, bearing walls, crawlspace vents, footing schedule, steel reinforcing, and structural information. If you require a different foundation type, please contact us for modifications to your plan.
  • Floor Plan Sheet: Floor plans are horizontal cuts through each floor level of the home, usually at 5′ above the floor. The floor plan shows the location of interior and exterior walls, doors, windows, stairs, closets, cabinets, flooring, appliances, plumbing fixtures, fireplaces, posts and beams. Floor plans also indicate vaulted, coffered, or box beam ceilings, cased openings and areas with ceiling soffits.
  • Roof Framing Plan Sheet: The roof framing plan shows the geometry of the hips, ridges, valleys, dormers, roof pitches, wall and plate heights, and overhangs. The plan also shows all individual roof framing members, trusses, rafters, beams, skylights, roof vents, gutters, downspouts, skylights, bearing walls under framing members, and point loads.
  • Elevation Sheet: Exterior elevations show all four sides of the house, describing the roofing, siding, and trim materials, doors, windows, roof pitches, skylights, gutters, chimneys, wall heights, finish grade and overall building height.
  • Building Section Sheet: Building sections are vertical cuts through the house from the roof to the foundation. The sections illustrate the construction sequence from bottom to top starting with excavation, proceeding up through the foundation, drainage, wall and floor framing, stair framing, roof framing, windows, doors, venting, and exterior and interior finishes. Wall plate heights for each floor are also delineated.

After the design is completed and reviewed, the next stage is to contact a custom homebuilder with a great reputation to ensure that your dream home comes alive.

Share this post