Tee hee hee! So much adolescent humour to be had around arranging the construction of a timber kit.

So the good news is that we are getting there. Part one ‘subterranean works, concrete and pipes’ is nearly complete and part two ‘The Erection’ is about to begin.

We have a date for delivery (23rd February) and it’s all starting to come together. The date’s been put back a coupes of times though – I don’t want you to think this is going smoothly…

Firstly back in August we had a date for delivery in September. But we couldn’t start on the build before we had a building warrant and we couldn’t apply for a building warrant before we had the calculations from The timber frame company engineers.

Building control can’t be gained in a month, even once you get all the paperwork done

……. so we had to put back the erection.

Secondly you can’t erect a frame without a foundation and we couldn’t build the foundation without a plan from the timber kit company. The architects had drawn a foundation plan but The kit company make a specific plan for our builder to work to. The plan maker couldn’t make the plan until the engineers had done the calculations and the builder couldn’t build until he had the plan.

And building foundations can take some time to build

…… so we had to put back the erection.

Thirdly, I noticed (which I should have noticed before) a BT phone line right across the plot. It was only when I saw it stretched over the foundations, right above where our dining table and kitchen work top would be, that I realised just how in the way it was.

I called BT OpenReach about getting it moved.

Timescales? ‘Within 25 working days we’ll have someone out to you.’
‘Oh. Five weeks? But then it will be all done?’
‘No that’s just the surveyor, once he’s done the report it’s up to 90 working days to get the work done.’
‘You mean it could take up to five months to get this line moved?’

…..So we had to put back the erection

At this point Scotframe got in touch. They wanted me to take delivery of the windows for the house. Delivery where? To our barren windswept building site with diggers and holes in the ground? The vast and valuable, probably-most-expensive-component-of-the-house windows?

It seemed that they had ordered the windows right at the start of the process back in August: Before they had made the engineering calculations to allow us to apply for a building warrant to put in those self-same windows, before they had drawn the foundation plan so we could start building them.

I started by looking for possibilities of places they could go. However the space our neighbour the farmer had in his barn wouldn’t allow a forklift in to deliver them. I looked into building our shed/bike storage early but it would have got in the way of the kit erection. Then I thought ‘this is silly, they took delivery of the windows months before it would have been possible to make the kit (even without the BT line issue)’. And miraculously the Timber kit company found somewhere to hold onto them until now.

I think we are finally on track though. But I suppose it will be wise not to speak to soon.