How to choose a timber-house contractor

The hard part of building a timber house is not the construction. It is the shortlisting and contracting stage, where a buyer who misjudges a contractor commits to eighteen months of slow discovery of their mistake. This guide is a practical checklist for doing that stage well. It assumes you have already read our rankings and have a shortlist of two to four firms.

Before first contact: what to prepare

Walking into the first contractor meeting with a clear brief saves time for both sides and produces better quotes. At minimum, write down:

• Total floor area target, within a plausible range (e.g., 180–220 m²). Floor area drives almost every other decision downstream.
• Year-round or seasonal occupation. This determines wall thickness, insulation, heating specification, and in some cases foundation type.
• Material preference, with alternatives. "Glulam preferred, willing to consider kiln-dried profiled timber if the price gap is significant" is a more productive starting point than "glulam."
• Budget ceiling, including a 10–15% contingency. A firm that knows your ceiling can design to it. A firm that has to guess will often guess high.
• Site address and access conditions. Road width, grade, distance to power supply, and neighbours matter to every contractor who will be transporting materials and crews to the site.

The shortlisting meeting

Every contractor will try to sell you during the first meeting. Your job is to not let that happen. Bring the following questions:

"Can you show me three completed projects comparable to mine?"

Three is the minimum. One or two completed projects is a small sample; three with at least one at least three years old tells you something about how the firm's work ages. A firm that cannot produce this does not deserve your next meeting.

"Can I talk to two of your past clients?"

Every serious firm has clients who are willing to speak to prospective buyers. A refusal here is a red flag. A vague promise to send contacts later that never arrives is a bigger red flag.

"What moisture content will the timber have at assembly?"

The answer should be a specific percentage range, not "it's dried properly." Kiln-dried glulam is typically 10–14% at installation. Natural-humidity profiled timber is 18–22%+. If the person in front of you cannot answer this in a sentence, you are speaking to sales, not engineering. Ask to speak to engineering.

"What is included, and more importantly what is excluded, from the quoted price?"

This is the single most productive question in the entire process. Exclusions are where contracts go wrong. Typical exclusions that should be explicit: fastening hardware, compensation jacks, sealants, facade treatment beyond a basic primer, chimney and flue work, utility connections, final landscaping, and often the foundation itself. A contractor who lists exclusions clearly is easier to work with than one who omits them and addresses them as "additional items" later.

"What is your warranty, specifically?"

"Ten-year warranty" is a marketing phrase. Ask what it covers, what it excludes, and what your recourse is if the contractor disappears before year ten. A warranty from a firm with fifteen years of continuous operating history is worth more than a warranty from a firm formed two years ago — ask about operating history at the same meeting.

Comparing quotes

The single most useful discipline when comparing quotes is to reject any comparison that does not normalise to the same specification. This is harder than it sounds. Contractor A quotes kiln-dried profiled timber, 200mm wall, brick foundation. Contractor B quotes natural-humidity timber, 180mm wall, pile foundation. These are not the same product at different prices; they are different products.

Before comparing, align the specifications on paper:

1. Material type, grade, and moisture content.
2. Wall thickness.
3. Roof system, including insulation specification.
4. Foundation type and dimensions.
5. Window/door specification (brand, U-value, not just "double-glazed").
6. Interior finish level — bare shell, weathertight, or finished to a named standard.

Then compare. A 15% price gap between two quotes for the same specification deserves a direct question to the more expensive firm. A 40% gap in either direction almost always means the specifications are not actually the same, and re-normalising will close most of the difference.

The contract itself

We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice. Consult one. That said, the clauses that most commonly cause disputes in Russian timber-construction contracts are the following, and they deserve specific attention before signing:

Payment schedule aligned to construction stages

Front-loaded payment schedules (50% on contract, 30% on foundation, 20% on delivery) expose the buyer to substantial counterparty risk. Stage-linked schedules (10% on contract, 20% on foundation completion, 30% on wall assembly, 30% on roof completion, 10% on final acceptance) are standard in serious contracts and protect both parties. The exact percentages are negotiable; the principle is non-negotiable.

Schedule with explicit shrinkage pause

For natural-humidity materials, the contract should name the shrinkage pause, specify its minimum duration, state which party is responsible for compensation-jack adjustments during it, and explicitly allocate liability for finishing defects caused by inadequate settling.

Materials origin and substitution

The contract should name the supplier or at least the origin of structural timber, and it should specify what happens if the named supplier is unavailable. "Or equivalent" language is a standard concession; "at contractor's sole discretion" is not.

Force majeure and external-factor clauses

These clauses have acquired new importance since 2022. Read them. In particular, look for provisions that allow the contractor to pass through unlimited cost increases to the buyer — some contracts include these and some do not.

Dispute resolution

A clear arbitration clause is preferable to an unclear court-jurisdiction clause for most buyers. Specify the arbitration body and the governing law.

After signing: the early stages

Most contract-stage disputes arise in the first six weeks of work, for a counter-intuitive reason: this is the stage where the contractor is still calibrating what the buyer will and will not push back on. Early engagement — asking questions on site visits, reading the weekly progress report if one exists, raising small issues before they become large — sets the tone for the rest of the project.

A buyer who is attentive in the first six weeks almost always has a better experience in the next seventy weeks. A buyer who signs and disappears will find that the project shapes itself around whatever is most efficient for the crew.

A note on what this guide cannot do

Nothing above is a substitute for legal review of your specific contract or technical supervision of your specific project by a qualified engineer. For any project above 150 square metres or any site with non-trivial complications, budget for both. The fee for a competent independent supervisor is a small fraction of the cost of the errors such supervision typically prevents.