First Meeting with our Construction Manager

We met our Construction Manager (Mr H) for the first time today. When we arrived at the plot, the four corners of our house had already been marked out with wooden posts (as well as the houses of two neighbours).

Now those posts are there we can see where the back of the house will be, and where the terrace will be. This means that we are now able to visualise the size of the garden much more easily. (It is more than big enough for us, at roughly 11 meters long x 15 meters wide).

Mr H then introduced himself and told us a little bit about himself. He will be our Construction Manager for the entire build (not just for the structural build phase, as we had first thought).

We are pleased to say that he comes across as very knowledgeable and friendly. From now on he will be our single point of contact at Viebrockhaus, and is available to be called / e-mailed any time in case we have any questions, and promises that he will get back to us the same day (or latest the next day if we call too late!)

We went through various details:

• for the groundwork and electricity, water and telephone connections
• the height (above sea level) that the ground floor will be built
• how the construction site will be laid out (where they will put various containers and a silo).
• including a couple things we are going to do ourselves before the handover into the plan (upstairs flooring and loft flooring)
• a rough timeline for the structural build – assuming that they will start in the next two or three weeks as planned, they aim to get it water tight (roof on and windows in) before the Christmas holiday.

Again we are surprised – we had expected that they would only build the cellar this year, and only start with the work above ground in January. In theory, this should mean that they are also finished earlier (and we can move in earlier), but we will not get a detailed timeline until the roof is on, at which point the weather becomes less of a consideration. At that point, they will commit to a handover date (and from reading other people's blogs, Viebrockhaus keeps to this commitment).

As we shook hands and said goodbye to Mr H, he handed over our time-capsule (which will be built into the brickwork at the topping out ceremony), and our builders hard hats. All we need now are hi-vis jackets (actually it is the law to have these in cars in Germany, so we can use the ones we already have!).

 

 

 

 

 

 

We then went to have another walk around the garden before we left, and while there, were asked by a couple of passers-by (and their small Jack Russell) if we were the owners of that plot. When we said yes, they introduced themselves as our new next-door neighbours! It was nice to meet them and exchange telephone numbers. Their build should be started at more or less exactly the same time.

Now we (and also our new neighbours) are just waiting on the planning approval and the transfer of the land. Hopefully, it will all fall into place with no unexpected delays.