How do I go about getting building plans for a home.

[temple5]

We are looking to plan some home renovations in the next year or so which might involve removing some load bearing walls.

Before we try to estimate the cost I figure it would be a good idea to get a copy of the building plans for the home to see what walls can go and which can stay.

I called the CoC Development Building and Licensing and they provided me the Permit #, scope, and applicant name. The name is a company that doesnt appear as if they exist any longer (1987 home)

I then called the CoC Property Research Centre to start a search on my home. I have read that while the CoC will have what I am looking for and can provide it at a very reasonable fee, I might need permission from the home builder before I can obtain a copy.

How does one go about searching old company names to see if they still exist and if so how to contact them?

Has anyone gone through this process before?

I never imagined I would need permission from the home builder to get a copy of the drawings of a home I own (but then again Ford doesnt provide engineered drawings of their F150 to me either).

Thanks

[OMG!WTF!]

I can't really help you with that but what normally happens I think is people hire an autocad draft person to come in a create the drawings you need for the house. He/she will give you all the elevations and floor plans you need to submit renovation plans to your architect/engineer/city of calgary. Load bearing walls will be apparent in these drawings. And from there your architect/engineer will explain how to do what you want and then create the reno drawings at much less cost. It's definitely cheaper then having an architect do them but obviously more expensive than getting the original plans from 1987 some how. Interested to see if there is a way to dig up old plans.

[You Need a Thneed]

You might be able to view plans at the city of Calgary, you won't be able to remove them, or get them to make copies for you without permission from the intellectual property owner (likely the homebuilder).

Your options are to try and find the original homebuilder for permission, or draw up a new set up plans from scratch.

[topfiverecords]

Even if you can uncover an original copy of the plans you'll still need it re-drawn in order to have a new submission. Then take into account the need to uncover any discrepancies between the as-built condition versus the builder's plans, which wouldn't be determined if someone just re-drew the plans blind without a site measure.

Btw, you don't need an architect involved at any stage.