From the first conversation to breaking ground

You send an email or you call. Usually there is a plot. Sometimes a house that is ready for something else, sometimes just an idea and an area you would like to live in. Between that first contact and the day the excavator drives onto the site, there is a period most people underestimate. More happens in those months than on the site itself. This is what we do in that time.

We come and look

We meet you at the plot. If there is already a house on it, we walk through it. We look at the slope, the position towards the sun, the soil, the existing structures and the road leading up to it. Where the water comes from, where the electricity runs, whether there is mains drainage or a septic tank. And how a concrete truck is going to get a hose as far as the foundations.

That last one sounds early. It is not. On many plots in the Marina Alta, access shapes how you build. A steep plot above Jávea asks for something different than a flat piece of land near El Verger.

We also ask what you want to do there. Live all year, part of the year, rent it out. With how many people, how often you have guests. Where you want your coffee in the morning. Those answers steer the design more than a number of square metres.

We make a first estimate

After that visit we do the sums. Not a final budget, that is not possible yet: there is no drawing. What you get is an order of magnitude, built up from parts we know, with the assumptions written out next to it.

An estimate with no assumptions under it is a guess in a tidy typeface.

So we put down what we have assumed. Soil type, foundation type, level of finish, whether something has to be demolished first. If an assumption changes later, you can see exactly which part of the estimate moves with it and why. No surprise afterwards, but a line you can look up.

The architect joins in

For new builds and for most extensions we work with an architect. In Spain the architect draws and signs the project and submits it to the town hall. We sit at the table from the first sketch, not once the drawing is finished.

That saves work later. A detail that looks good on paper but costs three extra steps on site, we take out at this stage. The other way round, we bring in what we have seen on earlier projects. Where water gets in. Which joint starts leaking after two summers. Which overhang really gives shade in August.

If there is a kitchen, a bathroom or tiling in the plan, Sani-Kitchen Projects joins here. A fixed partner, not part of TREE. Looking along early means the pipes are in the right place before the floor closes up.

The permit

Then the file goes to the town hall. What exactly you have to submit and how long it takes differs per municipality. Jávea works differently than Benissa, and Benissa differently than Pego. Some plots call for extra reports, on soil, water or landscape for instance. We do not put a deadline on that which we cannot keep.

What we do: follow the file, stay in touch with the architect and tell you when something moves. Including when the answer is that nothing is moving.

This is the part where people get impatient. Understandable. It is also the part you gain the most from later, because a project that is right on paper runs more calmly on site.

Meanwhile we get the build ready

While the file is with the town hall, we do not stand still.

• We work the estimate up into a final budget based on the drawings.
• We ask prices from our regular subcontractors and suppliers, and fix the main materials.
• We make the schedule: which crew comes when, and where the waiting times sit.
• We arrange what the site needs. Water and power for the build, access, storage, fencing.
• We set down who decides what, and how you reach us if you want to change something.

Extra work rarely starts on site. It starts at the table, in a choice nobody wrote down. So we write those choices down beforehand.

And then the digging

Once the permit is in, the budget signed and the schedule set, the excavator comes. For you that is the beginning. For us it is the moment the thinking stops and the building starts.

What happens up to then does not show up in a photo. No walls going up, no roof closing. But it is the part that decides whether the rest runs smoothly.