The questions nobody answers before you have already paid

Yes, but almost no stock plan ships with a foundation that is designed for it. Expansive clay swells and shrinks with moisture, which moves a slab unevenly, and Texas law specifically pulls residential slabs on expansive soil out of the exemption that otherwise lets anyone draw a house plan. In practice that means a geotechnical report and a foundation design sealed by a Texas professional engineer, both on top of whatever you paid for the plan.

Fourteen full counties are in the Texas Department of Insurance designated catastrophe area: Aransas, Brazoria, Calhoun, Cameron, Chambers, Galveston, Jefferson, Kenedy, Kleberg, Matagorda, Nueces, Refugio, San Patricio and Willacy. Harris County is partially included, limited to the parts of La Porte, Morgan's Point, Pasadena, Seabrook and Shoreacres that are inside city limits and east of State Highway 146. Montgomery, Liberty, Waller and the rest of Harris County are not in it and do not need windstorm certification.

A stock plan is architectural drawings and nothing else. It does not include an engineer or architect seal, a site plan, mechanical, plumbing or electrical engineering, energy code compliance, a soil report, a foundation design for your specific lot, or a septic design. Most of it is not optional, so get quotes for each piece before you buy the plan.

Add the setbacks to the plan's footprint. Every plan page here does it for you with typical numbers: the plan's width plus 5 ft on each side, and its depth plus 25 ft in front and 20 ft behind, with another 20 ft on the garage side when the garage is side entry. Those are typical suburban numbers, not your city's rule. Setbacks, easements and deed restrictions vary by city, subdivision and county. Check yours before you buy.

Two ways. Some designers offer a fixed price alterations menu you choose from with the plan, in one checkout; or you ask the designer for a change before you buy and they quote a price and a time in a thread. Either way the job has a due date in business days, the designer can only move it if you accept, and if the revised set is more than 3 business days late you may cancel that part for a refund of its price and keep the plan.

Tick Compare on up to 4 plans, on their cards or plan pages, and open the bar at the bottom of the screen. The plans line up page by page in one book: fronts, footprints, floor plans, rooms and specs, cost to build and price. Only the footprints page is drawn to one shared scale; the fronts are illustrative renderings and the floor plans are not at the same scale.

Here it means the plan meets every one of 5 published rules, worked out from the plan's own data and never awarded by its designer: the enclosed footprint has 8 or fewer exterior corners; a slab foundation is offered; one main roof form; fits a lot 60 ft wide or less with typical setbacks; heated area between 1,000 and 2,600 sq ft.

Only with your yes, one pro at a time. If you tick the introductions box on the build review, the pros on your list see your project (where, the plan, budget and timeline) but never your name, email or phone. When one asks to be introduced, we email you their name and you confirm or decline. Only a pro you confirm gets your details. A request you do not answer lapses after 14 days, and every email has a link to turn contact off.

Look the address up on FEMA's Flood Map Service Center. Zones starting with A or V are the Special Flood Hazard Area, the land FEMA expects a 1 percent annual chance flood to cover, and there your local floodplain rules decide how high the lowest floor must sit, often above the base flood elevation plus a safety margin called freeboard. A licensed surveyor, engineer or architect records the built height on an elevation certificate. On a low lot that can change the foundation, so check it before you choose a plan, and have a licensed engineer design the foundation for your lot.

A geotechnical report is a licensed engineer's study of the soil where your house will sit: borings, lab tests and recommendations the foundation engineer designs from. The International Residential Code lets the building official require a soil test where soil is likely to be expansive, compressible or shifting, and on expansive clay, which is common around Houston, a sound foundation depends on one. Free soil maps such as USDA's Web Soil Survey give a first look, not a substitute. Hire a licensed geotechnical engineer, then have a licensed engineer design the foundation for your report.