Building house in Lefkas,Greece - Part 3 - The Build

After buying a piece of land in November 2014 the next stage was to get our house built with a target of moving in by mid-November exactly a year after we bought the land. 

This was thought to be a challenge by all in the project team and would probably be some sort of Lefkada record if we achieved it.

The plot was outside the town planning boundaries so we had to get a certificate to confirm that this land was not a forest. This involved advertising in a local newspaper for a couple of months so anyone that believed it was, could object.

Although we have a few large pine trees and 28 olive trees it was confirmed, after much stamping of papers, that our land does not constitute a forest.

We also had an archaeological check on the land by digging a trench and inviting a nice lady from the council to look in our hole for anything representing relics (it was raining so she didn’t stay long).

The final stage of getting ready to build was obtaining the license which was a submission of our plans which went well with a couple of small hiccups.

This was all handled by our construction team and architect who for some days seemed to camp in the town hall until they got what they needed.

We were finally good to go in March when the rains had stopped and the weather forecast looked favourable. The diggers moved in and the foundation excavations took place

Lefkada is in an earthquake zone therefore all new buildings are built with very strong  foundations, even though we were building a one storey house the foundations and supports are built to a minimum specification of 3 storey equivalent. This is done to an exact method that allows the house to move with the earthquake in a ‘raft’ fashion to withstand very strong quakes.

The only time you see a building inspector in Greece is after the foundations are finished, when he signs off that you can go forward and complete the rest of the house, this inspection happened with no problems.

The house is a predominantly concrete construction with reinforced steel supports. The shell of the house was put up fairly quickly in the following few weeks and was left to ‘cure’ although we did have to water it like a plant to make sure the concrete didn’t crack in the spring sunshine.

The walls of the house were built with new technology,  honeycomb thermal bricks which are designed to keep in the warmth in the winter and keep out the heat in the summer.

The house was then plastered on the inside and rendered on the outside.

About this time in the mid-summer the latest ‘Greek Crisis’ hit which meant that getting our money from the UK became a challenge and our builders had problems paying for products from abroad.

This slowed some of the next parts of the project but we managed with creative thinking and money ‘smuggling’ to get what we needed.

We lived on site during the project in a caravan which meant we could give a daily inspection of the works which made a big difference to the speed and progress of the house.

The roof went on next, a standard timber, tile and insulation construction.

The house was now looking like a house, we were just missing the crucial windows and doors to make it watertight. These were coming from Germany so were some of the late arrivals due to the money constraints. As we have very little rain in Lefkada in the summer this didn’t really pose us any problems.

Our experience of Greek construction workers and tradesmen is they work extremely hard and fast when they are on site. It is getting them on site to start and finish a job that is the knack to getting a project finished.

The electrics, plumbing and interior walls and decorating all happened in varying sequences over the remainder of the summer depending on the availability of the workers.

We finally moved in early November two weeks before our target date of a year. We had a few finishing touches still to happen such as kitchen tiling and a shower screen which were still on order from abroad.

The whole project came in on budget with a little help from a positive exchange rate and we are now happily living in our new home which was cosy and warm through the winter.

Next stage is finishing the landscaping and building a swimming pool. So keep an eye out for your invite to the pool party!!