Complaint Letter to Scotframe

Posted on January 7, 2016 by nager

Now all the work we need done by Scotframe is done, I am posting here the complaint letter I sent to Scotframe in February after a litany of disasters that impacted our project, brought to head by being told, 10 days before the frame delivery, that they wouldn’t make the date and they didn’t know when they could get it to me.

The letter resulted in getting the frame delivery for one week later, but none of my other queries or complaints were followed up.

To: Cecil Irwin

Date: 13 February 2015

Subject: Urgent for Cecil Irwin: Response Needed Today

Dr Mr Irwin

I am writing in some urgency to obtain a date for delivery of my house. I have scaffolding coming in on Monday and so I need to know today at the very latest, a delivery date for the kit so that I know when to arrange the scaffolders to come. I had been advised by two separate members of your staff that you were the only person who could help me with my query but you did not return my calls yesterday.

What I have experienced the past couple of days I think throws up some serious problems in your company and I would like a response to this as well, although appreciate you will need longer than today to get back on this issue.

I have been working to a date of 23 February since October when we set the date and, as you will know, building a house involves a lot of other factors to be arranged. I have paid you around 90% of the total costs already. I have scaffolding coming in on Monday and a crane arranged for 23rd February. I have also booked four days off work and a cottage to stay in during the erection.

I called on Tuesday to check that everything was going to plan and was told that, not only was it not going to be ready for 23rd. There was no way that I could be given a date for the delivery of my kit. This is really not acceptable 10 days before a kit arrives that was booked in so many months ago.

I asked what was going on and apparently X can’t give me a date until he has the drawings on his table. I asked him to find out when the drawings would be on his table from the appropriate colleagues but he said that he couldn’t find out and that the only thing I could do to find out when my kit would be ready was to call the Managing Director, yourself.

I found this extremely odd, as you can imagine, and concerning as it suggested a disfunctionality to the way that your company is managing relationships between departments.

I called Y who had been dealing with me over the steel beams and asked if and when the drawings would be ready. He also suggested that you would be the person to speak to. I tried Z, who I have also had dealings with over engineering and technical matters who told me the floor and roof drawings were already with X and they were waiting on the walls. He couldn’t tell me any more than that.

All this was happening on Tuesday. Only 10 days before I had been told my kit would be ready.

My architects and I have already had to wrestle figures out of the technical department three times in the process of this build.

Firstly – back in September – We had to put the foundation build on hold for some considerable time while awaiting the layout for the foundation walls and we ended up having to wait weeks for this to be done.

Secondly getting the information for building control was painfully slow. In the end it was good that we had to put back the erection from late September to February due to there being a BT line in the way as we didn’t actually manage to get the right information from your engineers for building control until January 12th. Fortunately all the other documents were already with building control and once they had this final bit of information they could issue the warrant.

Again this week there appear to be even more last minute issues that weren’t done or flagged up at either of the first two stages and that mean the build is having to be put back.

Over the period of dealing with you, my architects and I have been dealing with at least 6 different people within your company and with your engineers direct. This creates issues of communication within your own company as no one person in Scotframe appears to know what is going on and have the overview. You don’t prioritisie effectively – I was being asked about the colour of the front door back in August and the windows were ordered up in late summer, months and months before we could have started the build because we didn’t have the appropriate plan for the foundations from you nor any of the information we needed for building control (as I said, this eventually arrived in January). Ordering the windows so ludicrously far in advance has caused you problems of storage and at one point X was trying to get me to store them onsite – which was totally impossible.

My immediate issue is needing a firm delivery date today. But I would also like to let you know that due to their experiences with Scotframe, our architects have already warned one client keen to use your system away from Scotframe.

I would like to know what you are planning to do to ameliorate the evident issues I have experienced. When I called the crane company to reschedule they said that Scotframe is always late and cause a lot of problems for clients so I think you need to do something to change the way people experience your level of service in the ground.

However right now I need a delivery date so that I can shift all of the organisation I have put in place. So please get back to me with this today. I am interviewing candidates for a job all day today but can check emails and will return a call when I get a break.

Yours

Monumental Scotframe scheduling disaster

Posted on November 28, 2015 by nager

Post from way back in February. Now the Scotframe Part of the build is out of the way.

From end February 2015

Scheduling has been a bit of a challenge during the build. I feel a sense of physical pain when I think of all the phone calls with Scotframe’s scheduling guy about some issue or other. The worst was calling him 10 days ahead of the due date for the kit delivery and erection to be told it wasn’t going to happen.

Apparently they were running behind, and no they couldn’t give me a revised date, and no they hadn’t thought to contact me as soon as they knew. I had booked crane and contractor and scaffolding, and even more critically, time off work, which I need to do months ahead as my diary is so busy, and I had even booked a tiny little cottage to stay in for a few nights.

The full story is here:

In short I had been advised by two people in two separate departments of Scotfame that the only way to sort the problems were to speak to the Managing Director.

I ended up following their advice and contacting Cecil Irwin, Managing Director, by phone and by email (see letter below). A date for delivery was pretty rapidly provided. It was rescheduled to be one week from the original planned date.

Small victories… but I didn’t have the time off work.

To: Cecil Irwin

Date: 13 February 2015

Subject: Urgent for Cecil Irwin: Response Needed Today

Dr Mr Irwin

I am writing in some urgency to obtain a date for delivery of my house. I have scaffolding coming in on Monday and so I need to know today at the very latest, a delivery date for the kit so that I know when to arrange the scaffolders to come. I had been advised by two separate members of your staff that you were the only person who could help me with my query but you did not return my calls yesterday.

What I have experienced the past couple of days I think throws up some serious problems in your company and I would like a response to this as well, although appreciate you will need longer than today to get back on this issue.

I have been working to a date of 23 February since October when we set the date and, as you will know, building a house involves a lot of other factors to be arranged. I have paid you around 90% of the total costs already. I have scaffolding coming in on Monday and a crane arranged for 23rd February. I have also booked four days off work and a cottage to stay in during the erection.

I called on Tuesday to check that everything was going to plan and was told that, not only was it not going to be ready for 23rd. There was no way that I could be given a date for the delivery of my kit. This is really not acceptable 10 days before a kit arrives that was booked in so many months ago.

I asked what was going on and apparently X can’t give me a date until he has the drawings on his table. I asked him to find out when the drawings would be on his table from the appropriate colleagues but he said that he couldn’t find out and that the only thing I could do to find out when my kit would be ready was to call the Managing Director, yourself.

I found this extremely odd, as you can imagine, and concerning as it suggested a disfunctionality to the way that your company is managing relationships between departments.

I called Y who had been dealing with me over the steel beams and asked if and when the drawings would be ready. He also suggested that you would be the person to speak to. I tried Z, who I have also had dealings with over engineering and technical matters who told me the floor and roof drawings were already with X and they were waiting on the walls. He couldn’t tell me any more than that.

All this was happening on Tuesday. Only 10 days before I had been told my kit would be ready.

My architects and I have already had to wrestle figures out of the technical department three times in the process of this build.

Firstly – back in September – We had to put the foundation build on hold for some considerable time while awaiting the layout for the foundation walls and we ended up having to wait weeks for this to be done.

Secondly getting the information for building control was painfully slow. In the end it was good that we had to put back the erection from late September to February due to there being a BT line in the way as we didn’t actually manage to get the right information from your engineers for building control until January 12th. Fortunately all the other documents were already with building control and once they had this final bit of information they could issue the warrant.

Again this week there appear to be even more last minute issues that weren’t done or flagged up at either of the first two stages and that mean the build is having to be put back.

Over the period of dealing with you, my architects and I have been dealing with at least 6 different people within your company and with your engineers direct. This creates issues of communication within your own company as no one person in Scotframe appears to know what is going on and have the overview. You don’t prioritisie effectively – I was being asked about the colour of the front door back in August and the windows were ordered up in late summer, months and months before we could have started the build because we didn’t have the appropriate plan for the foundations from you nor any of the information we needed for building control (as I said, this eventually arrived in January). Ordering the windows so ludicrously far in advance has caused you problems of storage and at one point X was trying to get me to store them onsite – which was totally impossible.

My immediate issue is needing a firm delivery date today. But I would also like to let you know that due to their experiences with Scotframe, our architects have already warned one client keen to use your system away from Scotframe.

I would like to know what you are planning to do to ameliorate the evident issues I have experienced. When I called the crane company to reschedule they said that Scotframe is always late and cause a lot of problems for clients so I think you need to do something to change the way people experience your level of service in the ground.

However right now I need a delivery date so that I can shift all of the organisation I have put in place. So please get back to me with this today. I am interviewing candidates for a job all day today but can check emails and will return a call when I get a break.

Yours

Action stations.

Posted on June 3, 2015 by nager

Had a visit up to the house again on Monday and, at last, after a long haiatus things are really getting going.

When I arrived three men were busying about fitting the panels of 125mm insulation on the floor.

Then as soon as that was done, the plastic sheet went down and insulation around the edge of that. Blink and you’d miss it at the rate they worked.

I was pleased to see that the racking panel wall was in at last – And the masonry wall behind where the stove will go. Fortunately Scotframe’s mistake in sending an additional supporting wall served to our advantage as the wall that was made to go there was badly warped beyond use and so the other wall they sent served in its place, with some adjustments. Pieces from the warped wall were canibalised to support the masonry wall.

We were actually able to utilize some of the tens of thousands of masonry ties that Scotframe delivered with the kit. I needed to get them ID-ed by the experts on Twitter as I had no idea what they were for.

(Apparently they are to tie a Masonary wall to a wood frame design.) so we managed to use about 25 out of the overflowing boxes (I am concerned that they reproduce while I am away as there always seem more on my return). I donated the rest of the ties to the builders – I hope they can make use of them elsewhere.

It was all looking good except that the hearth wasn’t in place. The amount of effort, I thought, and frankly blood sweat and tears that had gone into working out the hearth (link) meant I had a small panic when I saw them laying the insulation panels where the constructional hearth should be.

Here’s the poor guy sawing up the insulation to make room for the Foamglas insulation

Builder #2 was supposed to put that in when they did the walls and it seemed that they hadn’t. Fortunately I was there at exactly the right time to make sure it wasn’t forgotten. The guys swiftly cut the Foamglas to size while I was out calling builder #2 and it was all pretty much solved in the time I had managed to get a signal.

By the time I left, the underfloor heating was being laid

Plan is, the Glen Almond screed comes in over the underfloor heating and also over the Foamglas to form the constructional hearth.

That’s the plan.

It’s happening on Thursday so I am trying not to be stressed and just let it happen.

Monday starts the plumbing electricity the MVHR and the cladding. Unless there is a crisis in the meantime that is.

Ending the Radio silence – I hope….

Posted on May 19, 2015 by nager

There has been a radio silence on the blog recently. Which happens to coincide with a few mishaps and problems (“yet more?!” I hear you cry). I didn’t want this blog to be a litany of disasters and moans, and retain the upbeat, good news and optimism-in-the-face-of-house-Armageddon attitude, but that has unfortunately resulted in zero material for the blog over the past couple of months. So here is a bit of honest-blogging. There isn’t a neat narrative and happy ending to this (yet).

One of the problems I’ve been dealing with is the aforementioned missing piece of structural metalwork. Another has been waiting for the large numbers of things to be fixed by the framers. It seems many were the fault of the timber frame company for not providing the right items at the right time and the framers have been doing extra work at the site to fix them (fortunately not at my expense).
But it is hard to work out why the wall dividing the kitchen-dining room from the utility room is still learning against the wall, happily warping in the damp air.
Those readers who have been paying attention will remember this wall and its mysterious imaginary neighbour had already been causing some consternation and much to-and-froing between the various camps of engineers on the project while we were in the final stages of getting the house translated from the architects plans to the timber kit. (See blog)
And despite all the back and forth to persued the timber kit company that one of the walls they had made a structural wall (a racking panel to be precise – tying together the house to stop it flexing in the wind, rather than holding up any beams etc) was not a wall at all – only the diving line between open-plan kitchen and dining room – both walls had been delivered and were sitting there.

Just sitting there warping (but the good side of having an extra wall I didn’t need is that I can use the one that isn’t warped – but is too short- in place and add bits on…)
There is also the issue of the windows. They have been fitted in the wrong place. It really is just too wearisome to describe here. You’ll have to wait for a bit of good news on this front before I dare to draw out a blog on this one…

There’s also the small issue of not having anyone to do the cladding for the house. I may have, in my trusting nativity, put a bit too much faith in the word of the framing company that they would be able to do the cladding as well as the frame erection. Anyway, when it came to it – the pressures of lots and lots of houses to put up – meant that they didn’t want to do the cladding in the end and I was left with scaffolding and a half built house and no prospect whatsoever of getting cladding on it anytime soon.

I started the search for a company to do the cladding. The brilliant builders who did the foundations are tied up with two or three builds and couldn’t manage within my timeframe (the time frame of “GETTITUP!!!-the-scaffolding-is costing-me-and-the-rain-is-pouring-in-bigtime”) and calls to umpteen companies and visits from a few resulted in zero companies who could start this calendar year.

Eventually a company from Oban have been up and looked at the work and pointed out a few problems I have (including the window problem) and have sent me a quote. I am readying myself with a stiff drink just in case before I dare open the document.

And to finish with, here’s a nice sunset (it really went all these colours) taken from the Holly Tree Inn where I have been buying more than my fair share of cappuccinos recently to escape wind and rain and lack of reception and low battery power. It’s to remind me that life is beautiful despite the tiny issue of a troublesome house build.

The mystery of the missing metalwork

Posted on May 18, 2015 by nager

Have you ever spent all afternoon making a piece of ikea furniture and you sit back feeling rather pleased with yourself and, just as you set off to make yourself a well- deserved cup of tea, you see a large, essential and important element still lying on the floor. ‘Where the hell is that supposed to go? You shout in exasperation.
Remember that feeling?
Now imagine that you have a fully erected house and you are just starting to think of what colour to paint the bathroom*, when you look down from gazing up at your wonderful edifice and see a large significant looking piece of metalwork sitting at your feet. The kind of bit of metalwork that would hold a couple of beams and take a very significant role in holding a house in an upright position.

A piece looking just like this.

This is exactly what happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I was showing long-suffering husband the wonders of a house upright when he pointed to the piece of metalwork on the ground in front of the house. (It hadn’t been there the las time I was at the house).
We had just finished wondering to ourselves ‘where the hell is THAT supposed to go’ and started to search about for the number of the contractor, when our neighbour, the farmer, popped over to pass the time of day and ask whether we’d seen one of his free-ranging cows on her wanderings.

‘What’s that’ he asks, pointing at the metalwork

‘I was just asking myself the same thing’ I mumbled in reply.

‘Funny, we’ve got something a bit like that, but bigger, lying at the end of our track’

We headed over to his track and there lay an even larger piece of metalwork, one deigned to hook over one beam and take two more beams.

‘Oh dear, I think that must be ours.’
I could just about pick it up. With help I got it back to the house, took some pictures and emailed them to the contractor. I put the next stage on hold until we knew what was going on.
A week later I was back at the plot with the chap from the framing company.

It turned out that the larger piece of metalwork was a shoe for the centre of the house to hook over a beam and hold up the beam that holds up the ridge beam.

It seemed to be rather a miracle that the house was able to stand up without it. The framers had bodged some hangers for the beams, which were holding it all together and which explained why the short beam at the top of the stairs was held in by nothing more than a few nails driven in at an angle.

Theres now a hanger on one side but the beam is still held up by nails on the other….
The other large piece of metal was a specially commissioned shoe to act as a retrofit to replace the original shoe which meant that it could be slipped over the existing beam, and under the other and bolted into place and wouldn’t necessitate the dismantling of most of the structure to put it in.

Well that was a relief (of sorts) the plan was OK-ed by our engineers, and fitted successfully. (with a little panic when I first saw it and thought it wasn’t installed in the right position – but it was, thank goodness). It could have been good to know about the issues in advance of coming across the pieces of metal scattered around the neighbourhood but it is, at least, one of the numerous issues sorted and dealt with.
And now I have a large piece of metal which I suppose I could sell on e-bay. Or have it as part of a very over-engineered bench at the front of the house. Something to remind me of the trials and tribulations, stresses and strains, hubris and horrors of building your own house.
* slight exaggeration

Wind and watertight! The frame is complete

Posted on March 16, 2015 by nager

Time lapse taken from the south of all the site action up to Friday 13th March …

Time lapse of the build so-far

Posted on March 11, 2015 by nager

So excited about this video. This is an interim video just up to midday 10th March, but I’ll upload the rest when I have it! For those interested in how I did the time lapse – it was actually really easy. I used a Bushnell Trophy Cam on Field Scan mode taking one photo every 2 minutes between 6am and 5pm. This camera is waterproof and fixes onto a post or tree. I took out the photos taken on the days that no build took place and so this film is made up of shots from Wed 4-6 March and the morning of 10th March.

Timber kit day 3-4: in which things go pear shaped again ….

Posted on March 8, 2015 by nager

Heavy rain and strong winds were forecast again for Thursday and, as I sat in my Glasgow office, I looked out at the trees bending in the wind and heard the whistling through the telegraph wires, I thought of the guys up at Cuil Bay. The weather up there was worse – really horrific. Rosco and the team managed to get another layer of panels and roof beams up in a lull in the gales in the middle of the day, but things weren’t looking good.

I was feel a little miserable until I received a couple of photos from my neighbour showing how much they had managed to achieve. Wow. Look at this – and with that weather too!

On Friday things deteriorated further. The team heroically tried to get on the roof panels and managed four, but it was far too dangerous and they had to stop. The rain was torrential. They sent the crane home at 2pm as the wind picked up even further.

So we needed a crane for Monday. I already knew that the Oban company we had been using had the crane booked out all the following week, and the Fort William company was booked out the whole month building a school so I was at a bit of a loss. Dumbarton?

James from the company erecting the kit suggested I contact a company in Lochgilphead. They didn’t exist on the web, but he gave me ‘Harry the Crane’s’ number (as it came across from his contacts list).

Yes he could do it. (hooray!)

But could he be there at 8am?

‘That’s fine, we’ll just set off at 5am.

And No he couldn’t get directions to the plot by email.

‘I don’t ever go near a computer. Do you know how old I am?’

I checked the weather forecast. High winds all weekend and into Monday. A lull on Tuesday and then a full gale by Wednesday. Tuesday is the day! I confirmed the booking.

In the meantime my house is sitting utterly exposed to the elements and lacking a roof in torrential rain and high winds. Gusts of 99km/h forecast for Monday afternoon. I hope the house is still there when I get to the plot at 8am on Tuesday.

The Timber kit arrives

Posted on March 6, 2015 by nager

Right. I totally owe you a nice, positive blog like I usually do with a story and a happy ending….

Well I can manage something but perhaps not the happy ending just yet.

So far the story of the past week has all the elements of a ripping yarn: woes and despair, stratospheric highs, hope, tension and jeopardy, heroes, and some extreme snow sports.

This story starts in the snows of Rannoch moor as, yet again, I take the high road to cuil bay in yet another blizzard. This time it was – at last- to actually be there for the frame going up. All set. 730am Tuesday morning crane arrives, 8am frame arrives. Friday morning – house. Just. Like. That.

The phone call came at 430pm from the crane company. They had done their very first rece to the site at 420pm the evening before the 730am start and didn’t like the base to sit the crane on. Days of rain had made the ground sodden and the areas prepared for the crane had gone all wobbly- like a jelly. He wasn’t going to set up.

I sat on the Moor and made phone calls. To the company putting the frame up, to the kit manufacturer to try to stop the transport of the kit – too late it had already left – to Ronnie the digger driver. Trying to pursued the crane company that all could be well with some steel plates. Trying to work out what to do. The snow got worse and after an hour I had to leave the land of reliable reception before I was snowed in there of the night.

Things seemed bleak. I popped into the coop and bought a bottle of single malt, and a few bottles of wine.

Yes I know – a bit much just for me, even after the day I’d had. In fact I was stocking up – If this house actually happened, some people were going to deserve some presents. I’d also baked a whole tin of cakes to butter up the builders. But I do admit to sneaking one for me in that lay-by on Ranch Moor (desperate measures…)

I still didn’t really know what was going to happen until 7pm when our first hero of the story, Ronnie the digger driver, called me in a miraculous moment of telephone reception and said that his boys would get stone from the quarry at 6am and he’d be on site at 7am to dig the holes so the crane could get in for 8am. It actually took me a while to realise that this is what he was saying as I can only understand every second word these construction-industry types say as there seem to be hundreds of technical terms for what is essentially bits of rock of different sizes. When I worked out what was happening I went all weepy and made a rash decision of who would be getting the whisky.

Dawn broke hopefully; calm and cold. No snow thankfully and the sun was even trying to come out when I arrived at the site at 730am.

But all was not well.
No crane (it didn’t bother setting off from Oban as they had some snow – they eventually sent it at 8 and it didn’t arrive until 940am, two hours late).
No rock – the guys had been to a couple of quarries that morning and all were snowed in. Ronnie did as best he could with what he had available – steel plates and extra gravel.
And then two articulate lorries arrived at 830am and were all ready to go sitting in a narrow layby on the tiniest single-track road and presumably charging by the hour.
When, eventually, the crane driver arrived, he didn’t like what he saw and refused to set up.
And then the weather took a huge turn for the worse. Gales and horizontal snow.

And so, in the midst of mud, despair and torrential rain, another hero emerged. Rosco (Sunday name Martyn, or so I was told), the Glaswegian in charge of the band of four responsible for getting the frame up went to speak to the crane driver.

I don’t know what he said but it wasn’t long before the crane had found a place to set up to unload (although it wasn’t suitable for the build). Periodically Rosco aimed a bit more pep talk at the crane driver for good measure to keep things going. Rosco’s arctic russian-type furry-ear-flap-hat even managed to rival my knitted moose hat for silliness.
I gave everyone a cake.

Next difficulty was getting the articulated lorries in and out. Three of them.

The first up um-ed and er-erd, sucked in his teeth and wandered about the tiny turning area looking sceptical. At this point the tension got too much and I took myself off to a cafe. But when I returned, after a bit more motivational chat from Rosco the lorry driver had not only made it into position, they had unloaded and he was reversing. The turn they effected in the area he had was phenomenal.

And it was still raining. And blowing. And snowing.

The unload happened slowly, the stacks of panels being deposited in the thick gloopy mud around the plot and all over our next- door neighbour’s drive. Rosco had talked them into letting us put all the roof cassettes, and a load of other stuff on their drive and park our two vans, leaving a postage stamp area for the neighbours car. I went to thank them profusely and gave them a bottle of wine.

I spend the rest of the afternoon while the rain lashed down and the wind blew ‘visiting’, ie keeping the neighbours updated on movements and when the road would likely be blocked. Fortunately this activity kept me out of the rain and due to the friendliness of the neighbours I was furnished with cups of tea and even a soup, oatcakes and cheese meal. The spirits of the amazing chaps on site seemed unsinkable as they toiled tirelessly on.

We had a small triumph at the end of the day when one of Ronnie’s team arrived with a tipper truck full of, what I now know is called, Type 1. and we all waved good bye as I headed back to Glasgow, wet and muddy but with a small glimmer of hope that things would be better on Wednesday.

If you are concerned that no stratospheric highs nor extreme snow sports feature in this blog, you’ll need to tune in to the next installment in which despair turns to ecstatic joy (but don’t get your hopes up, it doesn’t last…)

Visiting a timber frame factory

Posted on October 3, 2013 by nager

It’s taken me a while to get round to writing this up but here goes.

In July I had the wonderful opportunity to visit Scotframe, a timber frame company with a factory in Cumbernauld, just outside Glasgow. It’s the first time that Matt has used a timber kit approach with the houses that he has designed and was keen to see the processes and the factory in action so I tagged along and, since it was school holidays, so did the kids. It was a hot and sunny day – one of the best of the summer thus far, and they moaned and groaned bitterly at the prospect of a morning sitting still and behaving on an industrial estate in one of central Scotland’s less picturesque spots.

We met Ray Waite, the business development manager and sat in a small and airless office meeting room. We talked through the basics of the process: a frame made from timber, with foam insulation between, refective membranes on each side and covered by chipboard. The panels are made in Cumbernauld but the insulation injection machine is in Aberdeen and so panels are transported there for finishing. You can choose the thickness of the walls, depending on the insultation you want in the house. I think we are having the most well-insulated version.

I have to admit to being somewhat bewitched by our host’s hair – a classic 80s do, with ample flicked fringe and luxurient demi-mullet. Something that the Hoff would have been proud of in his knightrider glory days and something that you just don’t see enough of. However, I am sure you will be glad to know that I didn’t let this distract me from collecting useful information for this blog.

We were all dying to see the factory though, and it was here that Ray really came into his own. It was obvious that he was happiest on the shop floor and he showed his real enthusiasm for his product – I’m not a great fan of professional salesmen but you can tell a guy who loves his precision nailing device (I think the impressively complicated machines actually do a lot more than nailing by the way).

Once our house is manufactured in the factory – windows and doors mounted in frames, panels packed up and labelled with the postcode, incredibly it will take only 4 days to build it to wind and water tight. Yes, you heard correctly. Four Days.

Once the kit is built, the slates and external cladding for the walls would need to go on but we would, essentially, have what would be recognisably a house. This is a dramatically shorter amount of time on site than conventional forms of building and far more controllable. It needs only a small weather window and, from there, the work can largely be protected from inclement weather. The system seems perfectly adapted for building in the notoriously unpredictable West coast of Scotland climate.

Given all of these advantages I wonder why Matt hadn’t specified this method of construction in previous houses. (that’s me sold on it)

The other query is whether this is going to give us the ‘Eco-house’ we so desire (see previous blog). It may be mainly timber but the insulation is made of evil petrochemicals.

I suppose this is a good point to remind us that we went to this system due to the costs of the extra-ecological-all-natural construction method Matt originally specified. This system looked to get us the best insulation and air-tightness for the cost.

The Scotframe panels can apparently achieve very good airtight ness as they fit together like a giant 3D jigsaw, with a female end (chipboard overhanging the wood frame) into which the male part – rounded ends of the wood frame fits. The membranes overlap and ensure a really airtight fit (figures were quoted but I was too busy keeping the kids quiet, or observing the mullet, to write them down – apologies). They use Scandinavian timber for the structural elements: slower growing and with a tighter grain, they give better strength than Scottish wood apparently. But they do use Scottish timber where they can, in the fibreboard/chipboard stuff.

The process they use has an impressive lack of waste. It will take a couple of weeks to program the designs for the house at Cuil Bay into their computers which then calculate how the machines need to cut the timber and assemble the panels most efficiently. This leaves about 3% waste – very impressive when compared against the 40-50% waste that there would be in a timber frame house being constructed on site.

The process all looks extremely efficient. Which is very comforting as it means that, presumably once we are past this current slow moving bit and we have made all the decisions and got all the permissions, the house will magically appear on the site. I can’t wait.