<a href="http://pigyard.com/wordpress/archives/392/our-housemar12" rel="attachment wp-att-393"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-393" title="Our-house(mar12)" src="http://pigyard.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Our-housemar12.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="150" /></a>Our house design is now complete and we are entering into the process of submittiing the plans to West Lindsey District Council.

In the meantime I have been, with our friend Nick, to visit several timber frame companies, both of which are in Wales. Up until this time we were going to use Potton based in St Neots however we have no other companies to compare their prices or their service so we decided to take a look. The difference between all three companies, <a href="http://www.potton.co.uk/" target="_blank">Potton</a>, <a href="http://www.framewiseltd.co.uk/" target="_blank">FrameWise</a> and <a href="http://www.ecoframes.co.uk/" target="_blank">EcoFrames</a> is quite distinct. Potton are at the top of the pile with several show homes, a large factory and offices to match They tend to build homes listed in a catalogue rather than bespoke designs. FrameWise also have a large factory and a reasonable sized office block however they don't have any show homes and apart from social housing they assume all self-builds will be bespoke. Ecoframes are the smallest of the three with very basic offices (no carpet) and a factory that is really just a warehouse with two large work benches and a small workforce (we only saw one person). They are very enthusiastic about bespoke properties and the more unusual the better. They even went as fas as to say they don't build boxes. We have asked for quotes from all three.

I think the way forward is to await the quotes and then ask the Architect/project manager to prepare a tender document for all three and see who delivers the best service. All of this depends on us getting planning permission.