At LIDA Construction, we often get asked a lot of common questions. One of the most common questions we receive is “how long will it take to build our custom home?”.
Unfortunately, there is no short answer on this as it depends on a variety of factors. The average custom home in Victoria takes about 8 to 12 months, but there are a variety of different factors influencing the time it takes to build a custom home.
Pre Construction, Permits and Design.
There is a lot of work that gets done before ground even breaks on your new custom home. This can take 4-5 months. Pre-construction means preparing the lot- excavating trees and leveling ground. Obtaining permits can take some time especially in a bigger city like Victoria. Also the design phase is a big chunk of time. This involves several meetings with the designer, architects, engineers and of course your custom home builder in Victoria.
Weather and Environment
We’re very lucky here in Victoria that we don’t have permafrost in the ground. In colder regions beginning new construction is out of the question until spring. Thankfully we can start any time of the year. However, there are a few tasks that can’t be done in the rain and need particular temperatures to complete. Ie. pouring concrete when it’s too cold, means it won’t set properly and it’ll need to be redone.
Changing Plans
This is one of the most time-consuming factors. When clients make changes to the plan, it can eat up a lot of time especially if it’s late in the process. This is why it’s so important to take your time with the design phase and make sure everyone involved is happy.
Procrastinating about finishes
Many items take 6-8 weeks to order. For example, if you’re waiting until right before the cabinets are to go in to make your final decision, your build will suffer from a 6- 8 week ordering delay. An experienced Victoria custom home builder will be familiar with ordering times of local suppliers and can give you deadlines to ensure everything runs along smoothly.
Contact us at LIDA Construction if you have any other questions dealing with building a custom home in Victoria BC.