Building where nothing arrives by truck

The access survey comes before the price

Before we quote anything awkward we walk the route from the nearest point a vehicle reaches to where the cabin will stand, photograph every constraint and measure the tightest one. Panels are then designed to pass it.

A cabin that ships as three sections on flat ground ships as six through Stone Town's lanes, up forty steps between granite boulders above Glacis, or into a Lagos service lift. The joints are engineered rather than improvised, and the carry is priced as its own line — because you cannot compare two quotes when one of them has buried it.

One consolidated shipment, packed to a checklist

For anything crossing water the entire project ships once: panels, heater, controls, chiller, hoses, filtration, fixings, sealant, tiles, drainage and tools, packed against a written checklist that somebody signs, with a deliberate margin of the things that get lost or found short.

Every cabin is dry-assembled in full in the workshop first — door hung, benches in, photographed and numbered — because a joint that does not close is a ten-minute fix on the bench and a week-long problem on Pemba.

Salt, and the seven things that stop it

A4 stainless for every fixing including the hidden ones. End grain sealed before assembly, not after. A ventilated void under every cabin. Drained and vented cavities. A sealed filtered plant enclosure. A titanium heat exchanger in the water circuit. Quarterly service with a corrosion inspection.

Do those seven and salt is a maintenance item. Skip any of them and it is a countdown — and the installations we are called to repair on African coasts are almost always inland specification installed on a beach.

Cyclones, monsoons and uplift

In Mauritius the anchorage on anything outdoors is engineer-signed, because between November and May it has to be. On monsoon-exposed coasts everything is fixed for uplift rather than gravity, thatch is detailed against lifting rather than simply laid, and plant is sited out of direct spray.

None of that is exotic. It is ordinary coastal building practice, and it is the difference between a deck that is still there after a bad season and one that is not.

In short

• Route surveyed and photographed before a price is given
• Panels sized to the tightest turn; the carry priced as its own line
• One consolidated shipment, packed to a written checklist, spares kit left on site
• Full marine specification and, where required, engineer-signed anchorage