From this:
... to this:
So it is has been one year (and a couple of days) since we broke ground and to be honest we thought we would have moved in by now and be enjoying our lovely new house.
However, we are a handful of weeks from moving in and even then there will be some finishing to do on the externals.
I don’t wish to do a full postmortem on the ins and outs of what has eaten up time (may be in a future post) but it feels like a good time to reflect on progress.
What has gone well?
- ground work
- SIP build speed (ie the super-structure)
- First fix electrics and plumbing all happened quickly
- Boarding and the first decoration phase
- Installing the MVHR
- Installing our InfraRed heating system
What could have gone better?
- Supply of materials (see below)
- Difficulty in getting in trades people to do specialist tasks (eg installing our very thin stone tiles).
Our biggest bug bear is with suppliers who either a) say they have plenty of stock available, but once the order has been placed the stock has miraculously disappeared / is now on back order; or b) commit to a deliver date and just ignore it, despite people being ready to do their job based on that delivery date.
The bottom line is the “building trade” appears to be a highly inefficient beast!
Having said that, we are not complaining :-) We love our overall house design and the quality of the workmanship has been exemplary - if you find the right people, they really do take pride in their work.
Some day soon we will be toasting moving in and pretty soon after I'm sure we will have forgotten the stresses and hiccups in the build process!
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