Designing a custom home is a process that can begin at any time and whenever you’re ready. In Calgary, though, starting to design your custom home in the fall is often best, as it offers the greatest chance that construction can begin when the weather starts to improve in the spring. This can help prevent delays and make work easier for builders.
Key Takeaways
- Best Time to Start: Begin custom home design in the fall to allow for permits and a spring construction start.
- Why Fall Works: Warmer spring weather makes early construction tasks, like pouring concrete, easier and more efficient.
- Timeline Matters: Expect 6–8 months from discovery to permit approval before building begins.
- Builder Availability: Starting in fall helps secure a builder during Calgary’s busy construction season.
- Flexibility: Design can start anytime, even if construction is delayed—winter work continues, but spring offers fewer challenges.
The Best Time to Start Designing a Custom Home in Calgary
Fall is the best time of the year to start designing a custom home in Calgary because it gives you the best chance of beginning construction as early as the spring or early summer.
The work on building your home won’t stop just because the temperatures drop, but when your custom home design is ready for builders to begin their work in the spring, it means the early stages of construction occur at the time of the year that is most conducive for them.
Designing your home in the fall also allows you to ensure you have a builder who is available to work on your house during the busiest time of the year for construction in Calgary. They say there are two seasons in Calgary—winter and construction season—so it’s important to find a builder early and make sure they’re available for a spring start.
Why Timing Matters in Home Design
Designing and building a home takes time, and while construction is a year-round business in Canada and work continues throughout the winter, a lot of the work is easier to accomplish in the spring, summer and fall. Pouring concrete, for example, can be done when it’s cold and there’s snow on the ground, but it’s work that’s ideally suited for warmer temperatures.
While the actual design of your custom home may only take 3 to 4 months, you won’t be able to start construction until you’ve received the required permits from the City of Calgary or your municipality. In the first quarter of 2025, Calgary had more housing starts than any Canadian municipality, so anticipate that the process will take time and can’t be rushed. The City staff are busy.
There are ways we can help increase the likelihood of your project’s approval, but you’ll have to wait for the planning department to approve your home before construction can begin, one way or another.
The Best Time of the Year to Begin Home Design
When you start your custom home design in the fall, you’re setting yourself up to begin construction on your house as the temperatures start to rise and there are fewer weather-related obstacles to work around.
Use these timelines as a guide:
- Discovery Phase: This is when you meet with your custom home designer and articulate your ideas. It generally takes ~2 to 4 weeks.
- Design Phase: Your custom home designer will get to work on the design of your home using 3D modelling software and consulting with both you and the municipality. The timeline for this is ~3 months.
- Permit Approval Phase: It’s important to factor in the amount of time it will take for your custom home to get approval on both development and building permits. For single-family and semi-detached homes, development permits generally take 3 to 4 months while building permits take about 1 month.
When you add up the time it will take for those three phases, you’re generally looking at around a 6 to 8-month process from your first meeting with your custom home designer until shovels are ready to go in the ground for construction.
If you begin the custom home design process in early September, that would mean you’re starting construction at the end of April or beginning of May, providing 4 or 5 months for construction crews to get a head start on building your home in Calgary.
Starting Custom Home Design at Other Times of the Year
While fall is considered the best time of the year to start designing a custom home, that doesn’t mean you have to wait if you’re ready to start with your project at another time. Many clients work with our team on projects they’re not looking to get built immediately.
There’s nothing wrong with designing a home now and waiting until later to build it. That can provide more time for the permit process and necessary tweaks to your design.
Remember, too, that while construction in Calgary may boom in the spring and summer, it’s a year-round business, and work still occurs throughout the winter.
Design Your Dream Home with Ellergodt Design
Whatever time of year you decide to start designing your custom home, Ellergodt Design can take your vision and make it a reality. Our expert team has over two decades of experience designing homes in Calgary and will work collaboratively with you, as well as builders and the City of Calgary, to help bring your home to life.
FAQs
The final pricetag depends on a variety of factors. The cost of designing a custom home depends on the location, the size of the project, and the complexity of the design.
Home construction doesn’t stop in winter, and it generally takes around 10 months for a single-family home to go from the first shovel being put in the ground to the final touches being completed. That means construction will take place in both winter and summer. There are challenges with cold weather and heavy snowfall for construction, though, and it’s ideal to get a solid head start on custom home construction in the warmer spring and summer months.