What happens month by month once building starts, using a typical 6-month build as the example. Actual builds run 5 to 8 months depending on site conditions.
Written by Serge, Founder, Kelowna Carriage Homes
This page covers construction itself. Before the first shovel goes in the ground, design and permitting generally take 3 to 5 months: a feasibility study, floor plans and engineering, and the City of Kelowna submission, which runs 4 to 6 weeks for a clean, complete application. The timeline below starts on the day excavation begins, once a permit is in hand.
The 6-month figure in this page’s title is a typical, representative build for a standard-condition lot. Actual construction runs 5 to 8 months; a longer timeline usually comes from site conditions (slope, rock, servicing distance) rather than anything unpredictable about the work itself, and known risk factors are flagged in the feasibility study before you sign a construction contract.
Work starts with fencing the site, protecting trees and landscaping outside the work area, and excavating for the foundation. Servicing lines — water, sewer, and power — are trenched in from the connection point identified during design. This is generally the noisiest and most disruptive stretch of the whole project, typically about two weeks of excavation and equipment noise, after which work settles into the rear yard behind the fenced site.
Foundation forms go in once excavation and servicing rough-in are complete, followed by the concrete pour and a curing period before framing can begin. Weather is the main variable in this month: a wet spring can push excavation and pour dates by a week or two.
Wall and floor framing goes up on the cured foundation, followed by roof trusses or rafters. For a two-storey carriage home with ground-floor parking, this month usually includes the floor system between levels, which needs to meet sound-transmission standards separate from the structural framing itself. By the end of this month the building is generally weathertight at the roof, even if walls are not yet sheathed.
Windows and exterior doors are installed, and the building is wrapped and sided or stuccoed, closing in the envelope against weather. Inside, electrical, plumbing, and HVAC rough-ins happen in parallel, since all three need to be in place and inspected before insulation and drywall can start. This is typically when the City’s framing and rough-in inspections occur; scheduling these promptly, rather than batching them, is one of the more common places a build loses time if not managed closely.
Once rough-in inspections pass, insulation goes in throughout the walls, ceiling, and floor system, followed by a vapour barrier and drywall. Taping and mudding, then sanding and priming, take up most of this month. Little of this is visible progress from outside, which is why owners sometimes assume things have slowed down here; in practice this is one of the more labour-intensive months of the whole build.
Flooring, interior doors and trim, cabinetry, and countertops go in, followed by painting. Plumbing and electrical fixtures — faucets, light fixtures, outlets and switches — are installed and connected. Appliances, included in the fixed-price contract, are typically delivered and set in place toward the end of this month once flooring is protected and finished.
Final touch-ups, deep cleaning, and landscaping repair at the work area happen first, followed by the City’s final inspection. Once that passes, you receive an occupancy sign-off, your 2-5-10 warranty enrolment documentation, and a walkthrough of the finished unit before it is rented or occupied. From here, the unit is yours to rent, use for family, or occupy directly.
Four things most commonly push a build from 6 months toward the 8-month end of the range: winter weather affecting excavation and exterior work, bedrock discovered during excavation, a longer-than-expected inspection queue at the City during busy permit seasons, and owner-requested changes made after construction has started. None of these are unusual, and the fixed-price contract accounts for the first three where they are identified in the feasibility study; changes you request once building starts are the one variable that can add both time and cost, which is why finalizing selections before the framing stage matters.
Before excavation, we need final sign-off on the design and a locked set of finish selections — flooring, cabinetry, countertops, fixtures, and appliance models. Selections made after framing begins are the most common source of both delay and added cost, since some materials may need to be reordered or, in the case of structural changes, re-engineered.
During construction, your main involvement is approving the weekly site photo updates and being reachable if a site condition requires a decision, such as an unexpected utility line or a request to adjust a window placement. Most weeks require no action from you at all. Near the end, you attend the final walkthrough, where you can flag anything before signing off on handover.
A secondary suite conversion follows a shorter version of the same logic — rough-in, insulation and drywall, finishes, final inspection — but skips the excavation, foundation, and full framing stages entirely, since it uses a structure you already have. That is the main reason suite conversions typically finish in weeks rather than months: roughly half to a third of the construction time of a ground-up carriage home, depending on the condition of the space being converted. The secondary suite versus carriage home comparison covers cost and timeline side by side if you are still deciding between the two.
You receive dated site photos on a weekly basis throughout construction, along with a short note on what stage the work is at and what is planned for the following week. If a delay occurs — weather, an inspection reschedule, or a site condition — you hear about it as soon as we know, with a revised date, rather than finding out only once the original date has already passed. One point of contact carries your file from the feasibility study through handover, so you are not re-explaining your project to a new person at each stage.
Yes, mainly at the excavation stage. Starting in spring means Month 1 can run into wet ground and a higher chance of a short weather delay; starting in late fall risks frozen ground and pushes some exterior work into winter conditions, which slows curing times for concrete and can affect siding installation. Starting in early-to-mid summer generally gives the most predictable Month 1, though it is also the busiest season for permit volume at the City, which can add a little time to the review stage before construction even begins.
None of these seasonal effects are large enough to change which season we recommend starting in across the board; they are one more factor the feasibility study accounts for when setting your dated schedule, alongside site-specific conditions like slope and servicing distance.
A typical carriage home build passes through several City of Kelowna inspection checkpoints: footing and foundation before backfill, framing once the structure and rough-ins are complete but before insulation, insulation and vapour barrier before drywall closes the walls, and a final inspection before occupancy. Each is scheduled by us directly, and none require you to be on site, though you are welcome to attend any of them. A failed inspection is uncommon on a project built to the approved drawings, but where one occurs it typically adds a few days for the correction and re-inspection rather than restarting a whole construction stage.
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Costs, timelines, rents, and incentive amounts on this page are estimates from the sources cited, current as of September 2026. Each is confirmed in writing in your free feasibility study. Licensed and insured; documentation available on request.