Ordering season: why the panels should be ordered before the foundation

The projects that go fastest on site are the ones that were slow on paper first.

Every year we have the same conversation in September with someone who wants a shell up before the ground freezes and has not sent us drawings yet. Here is the timeline honestly, so you can work backwards from the date you actually care about.

The real sequence

Take-off and price: a few days once we have usable drawings. Your decision: as long as it takes. Shop drawings: two to four weeks, longer if window selections are still moving. Manufacturing: scheduled after drawings are approved. Delivery: scheduled with you. Assembly: about three days for an average house shell.

So the three days on site sit at the end of something closer to two months of paper. That is not slow — conventional framing needs its own lead time for trusses, engineered lumber and a crew — but it is front-loaded, and front-loading is what catches people.

Order before the foundation, not after

There are two good reasons. First, drawings and manufacturing can run in parallel with sitework, so the panels arrive when the foundation is ready instead of six weeks later. Second, shop drawings sometimes reveal something worth changing — a wall line that wants moving a few inches, an opening better made standard — and those changes are free on paper and expensive in concrete.

What delays a package

In order of frequency: window and door selections not final; foundation dimensions not confirmed as-built; structural questions still open with the engineer; and a decision-maker who is unreachable for two weeks. None of those are our doing and all of them are fixable in advance.

Seasonality

Spring and early summer are the busiest ordering window in this region, which means autumn deliveries fill first. If your target is a shell closed before Thanksgiving, aim to have drawings with us by late summer. Winter assembly itself is not a problem — nothing in the assembly has to dry, and we set panels in the cold routinely — but the paper still takes the time it takes.

If you are already late

Tell us the date you are working to and we will tell you honestly whether it is achievable. A straight no in July is worth more than an optimistic yes that fails in October.