Process

Designing Your Home. We design green homes. We build green homes. We provide green renovation. We share our expertise.

Designing a home is a partnership. We lead our clients, step-by-step, from site planning through room-specific details. We ask questions about how you live now and how you imagine living in your home. You develop a Design Program, including a brief description of your intent, including size, style, special features and budget expectations. This will be the “mission statement” for your new home.

Here are some of the major elements of the design process:Front Entry photo

  • Concepts
  • Site Plan
  • Floor Plan Options
  • “SketchUp” CAD Renderings
  • Electrical & Lighting Plan 
  • Cabinet Drawings
  • Interior Selections
  • Written Specifications 
  • Master Checklist

 

There are many other options, in addition to the standard Design Package, that can be considered, including:

  • Additional Energy-Saving Features
  • Photovoltaics
  • Backup Power
  • Thermal Solar

Additional design and planning will further customize your home's non-standard systems, finishes, and details. Energy design companies like Southern Energy Management or Solar Consultants become part of the EBG design team for select projects and are billed in addition to the Design Package on a house-by-house basis.

 

Front elevation photoWhat Does Design-Build Mean? Having Eco Building Group design and build your home will typically be less expensive than hiring an architect, since architects must create drawings and details for unknown building contractors whose skills and specialized knowledge vary widely. With our design-build strategy we are designing for our own building team, and that means fewer drawings are needed.

EBG does not have a licensed architect on staff. We have numerous design professionals included in each project's design team.

 

What Will It Cost To Design Your Home?  Costs for the design package are typically 6 to 9% of the expected construction budget of the house. For example, the minimum design package for a $300,000 home remodeling project would include three to five months of design and cost approximately $18,000. Additional design is billed out at $75 per hour, available in blocks of 20 hours. Additional design should be expected for a more custom or more technically challenging project.

Payments for design packages are typically billed as follows:

  • 50% upon signing
  • 25% upon completion of a scaled model for your new home design
  • 25% upon completion of design options and project specifications
  • Additional design is billed biweekly as performed.

 

Getting Started With Eco Building Group

We currently offer these options for home design and construction.

  1. Personalized Design-Build, on your home site or one of ours. Complete home design with earth-friendly specifications, complete engineering and construction.
  2. Custom Eco Homes, ready to buy and move in, such as our Umstead Retreat, near Umstead State Park. For more, visit the Projects page.
  3. Eco Project Management. We will blend house plans you provide with our expertise by “greening up” your specs, bringing in our team of talented subcontractors and providing complete construction management. You enjoy the peace of mind that your new home is exceptionally well built, healthy and eco-friendly. 
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