Once you have bought your land we help you decide where to place your house to make the most of your views. Firstly, though, we have to comply with planning regulations, which state that the house ‘footprint’ on out-of-village plots must be at least 15 metres from all boundaries and on in-village plots it needs to be 2.5 metres from property borders. We then mark out the footprint (1) with tape before sending in the bulldozers. The diggers need to clear this area of vegetation and excavate (2) to an appropriate level for the laying the foundations. This can take anything from a weekend to almost a month depending on the terrain and the size of the property. The foundations, which are built on the bedrock, begin with a 10cm thick concrete ‘slip coat’ (3) that allows your house to ‘ride’ any ground disturbances in the event of an earthquake.

A wooden frame, or shuttering, is constructed on the slip coat (4) and is filled with reinforced steel before the footings are poured. The wooden shuttering is left for about five days before being removed and the base backfilled with the excavated rock in preparation for a further concrete pouring (5) that caps the footings and creates the base. Once the base has been poured (6) and set we remove all shuttering and treat the outer walls with black bitumen to prevent any damp ingress. The areas beneath the supporting pillars are also treated to prevent damp from rising through the foundations - a problem that shows up in the form of bobbling paint on the walls. The shuttering for the columns are then constructed containing steel reinforcement and thermal insulation. The latter is necessary to keep down internal temperatures during the summer because of the heat storage properties of concrete. Once the columns are in place, the shuttering for the next floor - or flat roof for single storey buildings the - is constructed and braced from beneath before the steel is added (7) and the concrete poured. This process is repeat for a second storey or, for a pitched roof, the columns are added and tied together with a steel reinforced concrete beam off which the wooden roof frame is constructed.

The finished frame (8) is then filled in with cavity-brick walls. The bricks uses are often described as air bricks and unlike UK house bricks are not design to bear great loads. That job is done by the frame alone. Uniquely, we add a form of damp course in our walls plus up to 10mm of insulation - often twice the thickness used by other companies on their external walls. It is duruing the wall construction that stone features are added such as arches (9). We also insulate all roof terracing to prevent heat lost in the winter and heat gain in the summer from the rooms below. The whole structure is then given a plaster finish, which is painted and waterproofed, and the external windows and doors are fitted (10). And once the exterior of the house has been completed, our team of English craftsmen move in to add that touch of refinement. . . as well as fully functioning electrics and plumbing.