Starting any construction project is a daunting task and self-builds are no exception. The construction process involves an inordinate amount of unfamiliar tasks, which, if not completed correctly, in the right order and in good time, have the potential to knock your build off track before it has even started.
As a result of naïve enthusiasm, it’s quite common to find self-builders who, having fought hard to win a planning consent, rush onto site too soon and start to build prematurely, only to discover they have hit a technicality that has brought their project to a grinding halt. The whole point of the prestart phase is to make sure this doesn’t happen and to ensure that once started, construction work flows efficiently and as quickly as possible. For this reason, the prestart phase of a build is one of the most important stages because it’s where the detail is considered and plans are made to ensure there are no surprises once you’ve started on site and spending money!
While this series focuses on the practical stages of onsite construction, it’s worth remembering that there’s lots of other things to do before you can even think about putting the first shovel in the ground. Though every project is unique, a useful checklist of the headline prestart tasks is set out below. The focus of this article will be on the practicalities of setting up the site.
