When you buy bread do you have to sort through piles of old, stale bread to find a fresh loaf? No, no you don’t. When you invest in a new computer, do you expect it to use the most up-to-date technology? Of course you do! Then why do some home designers make you search through piles of home plans that are twenty years old, or older, just to find an up-to-date plan?

The most critical decision you make when building a new home, after location, is the home plan itself. It will make or break a project. It is far more important that a home function well than what color it is painted or what exterior styling it has.

People shop online today more than ever. When looking for a house plan people usually end up on one of a handful of house plan clearing house websites. While these sites seem to offer a huge collection and a wide variety they are also hiding something.

These high volume sites offer an illusion of choice. Some sites have over 25,000 house plans to search through. First of all, this is an unreal number, no one can possibly view them all. Even if you limit the number by filtering for specific features. You still end up with hundreds and even thousands of plans to choose from.

The main reason there are so many plans to go through is that there is very little reason for these sites to filter what they sell. A great number are old house plans. An equally disturbing number are of very low quality.

That house plan you just found online, and fell in love with, might be over twenty years old. How would you even know!? House plans do not come with an expiration date. Large mass sellers of home plans do not indicate the date a plan was created.

Old House Plans Are Hard to Spot

The only tools consumers have in spotting old house plans is the copyright date on the floor plan. When viewing a floor plan online, look to see if it has a copyright date. Not all designers show a copyright on the floor plans and some that do show it, do not indicate a specific date.

The fact is, once a house plan is created it will sit, unchanged for decades. It doesn’t cost a home designer anything to offer a house plan for sale that is decades old. After all, a twenty-five year old house plan is technically still valid. Most times you will see a disclaimer that states the plan met general code requirements at the time it was created. Unfortunately for the consumer that could have been in the 1990’s or before.

A house plan is more than just a plan to create a comfortable living space. It has to be designed to work with todays technology. It has to meet the demands of todays lifestyle requirements. You can take a 50 or 100 year old house plan and build a house from it. The problem is you are not going to like the cost involved in its construction as well as the cost of living in it.

We Do Not Sell Old House Plans!

We update every plan we sell to reflect the latest energy-saving techniques. Since it’s inception, Energy Smart Home Plans has been ten years ahead of the marketplace. We work very hard to keep it that way.

We are about real-life performance and not just popular programs or gimmicks. All our updates result in lower cost to build while improving efficiency, or we do not make them. If a plan needs too much updating we remove it from circulation.

Be very careful when making the most important decision about your new home. Make sure the home plan you choose is not out-of-date. Make sure your new home will be as efficient as it is beautiful and comfortable to live in.