A full residential plan set gives a builder every drawing needed to price and build the home, and a few minutes spent checking the sheets against each other before bidding can save a lot of back-and-forth later.
What Is in a Full Residential Set
RAO Designs is an engineering and design firm that prepares complete sets for new homes in Southwest Florida. It includes:
- Floor plan and dimension plan
- Site plan
- Exterior elevations
- Roof plan
- Electrical plan
- Foundation plan and beam plan
- General details
The plans are signed and sealed by RAO's in-house Florida-licensed Professional Engineer.
How to Check the Set Before You Bid
The sheets describe one house from different angles, so they should agree. Five quick comparisons catch most gaps:
- Dimension plan against floor plan. Overall dimensions and room sizes should match.
- Elevations against roof plan. Ridge lines, overhangs and roof shapes should tell the same story.
- Foundation plan and beam plan against the floor plan. Bearing walls and beams should land where the plan above says they do.
- Electrical plan against the floor plan. Fixtures and switches should sit in real rooms and real walls.
- Site plan against the lot survey. The building location and setbacks should match what the owner's survey shows.
Anything that does not line up is a question for the designer before the bid, not a surprise on site.
Where the County or City Comes In
The plans are reviewed by the building department of the city or county where the lot sits. RAO Designs works with the building department for whichever municipality the job is in, across Collier and Lee County, Naples, Marco Island, Bonita Springs, Fort Myers and Lehigh Acres.
Those departments publish their own lists of what a permit application needs. Collier County's page for new one- and two-family homes lists items beyond the drawings, such as energy and load calculations for air-conditioned space and a product approval index sheet. Lee County's single-family and duplex page has its own list. Ask which of those items are in the plan set and which you or a subcontractor supply, and read the current page for the jurisdiction before you order anything.
What This Does Not Cover
This post describes the drawings. It says nothing about pricing, schedule, permit approval, or soil and flood conditions on a specific lot.
When to Call the Building Department or the Designer
Call the building department when a requirement on its page is unclear for your lot. When plan review comes back with comments, RAO Designs coordinates directly with the building department and handles the responses and plan revisions within its scope of work. Call the designer when a change touches the structure, because changes to sealed structural sheets go back through the designer and the engineer.
Questions Builders Ask
What is in a residential plan set? Floor plan, dimension plan, site plan, elevations, roof plan, electrical plan, foundation plan, beam plan and general details.
Are the plans sealed? Yes. They are signed and sealed by RAO's in-house Florida-licensed Professional Engineer.
Where does RAO Designs work? Collier and Lee County, including Naples, Marco Island, Bonita Springs, Fort Myers and Lehigh Acres.
Planning a home project? Tell us what you want to build in Collier or Lee County on the contact page, or see the residential design service.
