What We Do

                                     ‘We don’t stand on ceremony’

At Lochdhu Cottages Ltd, when you contact us, the first thing you will notice is that we don’t stand on ceremony. This is because we fully appreciate that good rapport with the customer and with your site trades-people is essential for you to realize the home of your dreams. This starts with our initial telephone conversation and carries on through our table discussions, quotation, site visit, self-build kit home design, preparation and submission  of Planning Permission and Building Warrant Application drawings, procurement of Structural Engineer’s Design Certificate, Energy Performance Certificate, followed by manufacture and delivery of your new house kit ….and the start of your new lifestyle.

                         'thus saving you a considerable sum of money’

Initially, you relax whilst we do all the work obtaining the various certification and consents and constructing your Kit Home. Then the pace hots up a bit…. your chosen ground crew arrives to prepare the site, the timber frame kit house is delivered and kit erection by your chosen contractor starts. Further site visits follow, the chief purpose being to liaise with yourself and with your various trades-people to enable you to Project Manage yourself, thus saving you a considerable sum of money……. Then after a few months at the end you relax once more and hopefully invite us to your house-warming party!

                                           ‘… a world apart’

We are a world apart from the mass-producing Self build Kit Home Manufacturers and we do not try to emulate them, in fact many of our old-established ideas seem to have mysteriously cropped up in their brochures! What we can guarantee is to provide you with a good quality Affordable House of Character at a very competitive price, of the correct proportions, with great attention to detail and with the most personal hands-on service you are ever likely to get.

                          ' Purchase of  ‘off-the-peg’ planning drawings.'

NEW FOR 2017                                                                                                       All our designs are strictly copyright. However, In some cases a Licence Agreement can be offered to a self-builder for purchase of ‘off-the-peg’ planning drawings. This legal  document would allow a named individual to use or modify our supplied drawings to obtain planning Permission and Building Warrant and build strictly one specified house only at one specified site. Contact us to discuss prices and options.

Some of our other specialities are described below:-

                                    Timber-clad Kit Homes/ Eco-homes

Most of our House kits can be designed by us to be either masonry-clad or Timber-Clad and in many cases a combination of both can be cost-effective, very energy-efficient contributing to carbon reduction and also very pleasing to the eye.

                             Planning and Building Warrant Applications

The cost for preparing these is reasonable and additional to the kit cost. I submit these as your agent, on your behalf.  See Lochdhu Cottages Ltd  Price List, Notes to Pricelist  and Kit Home Specifications.  I also obtain the Design Certificate issued by our retained Structural Engineer and Energy Performance Certificate relating to the anticipated annual heating costs of your home. Council fees are extra and payable by yourself. I have a good record of success with Planning Applications (98% approved since 1988 – about 55 total) mainly due to the principle of exercising mutual respect and understanding of other people’s requirements.

          Lochdhu Cottages Ltd  Bespoke Service and Variations to Design.

We can alter or combine features from several designs, with a multitude of options to suit your individual requirements and the site aspect or we can provide a house kit to your own bespoke design or to your architect’s drawings, if required.  Variations to our standard kit home designs can often be incorporated into your timber frame kit house at minimal cost, depending on the complexity of the variation.

           Adapting your architect drawings into something that can be built!

This is another speciality of ours. Often we are asked to engineer a Timber Frame Kit House and produce it from client’s architect’s designs, which are sometimes so complicated that other firms of joiners appear to be too busy to accept the challenge! Considerable customer savings can result when we adjust designs and produce ‘buildable’self-build house kits of this nature.

                                    Personal Service and Site Visits

With most Kit Home manufacturers, the Customer finds that after the kit is delivered, the manufacturer’s involvement suddenly dries up.  With us this is definitely not the case, as many satisfied Customers will tell you. I always carry out free Site Visits, particularly whilst the Kit House is being erected to ‘wind-and-watertight’ stage and usually for the duration of the project. Please note that this does not encompass Project Management but it does go a long way towards giving you the self-confidence you need, to enable you to project-manage yourself, and so save a fair amount of money in the process. In many cases I can recommend other trades for engagement directly by yourself, together with an abundance of readily available technical and general advice both on and off site, throughout your project. This, as well as my commitment to you the customer, quality, attention to detail and economic design, sets Lochdhu Cottages Ltd apart from the rest.

                                             Cathedral Ceilings

Another optional speciality, like the Self-Build House Kit itself these are often over-engineered because they look right that way!

                                Partial Post-and-Beam Construction

Using optional 200x250 heavy Douglas Fir or larch and heavy black metal bolted tee-plate connections is not only aesthetically pleasing, it also is pleasing to your pocket.

                                 Feature Gables with large glazed areas

These are another speciality and can often be incorporated into one elevation of a Traditional House Kit without upsetting the planners.

                                                Further Options

Some further option examples for your Self-Build Kit House are:- insulation up-grades, kit adapted for under-floor heating, un-treated timber, breathing wall and roof, conservatories, splayed window-reveals, inglenook fire-places, feature chimney breasts,  metal roofs, decks, balconies, canopies.

                                     Delivery throughout the UK

Over the years we have supplied Timber Frame House Kits to many satisfied Self-Build customers throughout the Highlands, Skye, Outer Hebrides and further afield to sites near York and Wales and so we well understand the complexity of the process and the need to ensure that nothing is left off the wagon! Partly because the haulage firm has to be paid for loading and un-loading time, even if the site is only 20 miles down the road, the delivery cost represents a small percentage of the overall cost of the House and will be itemised in the Quote for your Self-Build Kit Home.