Key Highlights
The National Research Council, the research arm of the National Academies, published formal guidelines for federal construction stating that change orders caused by architect and engineer errors and omissions reaching 5% of construction cost "may be an indication of performance problems." Anything below that threshold is treated as normal professional practice.
On a $2M home, the federal government's own yardstick therefore treats up to $100,000 of design-error surprises as falling within expectations. That number is worth holding in mind while comparing drawing sets, because a complete set exists specifically to beat it rather than to spend it. It's also the reason our documents for a residential project can run past a hundred sheets where a permit-only set prepared by others might be eight.
Read it in the original, Chapter 6, Guideline 5: National Research Council guidelines for federal construction
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