Hello everyone,
I would like to introduce you to my project. I am open to ideas, suggestions, and feedback.
The house (built in 1967) has two full floors and an attic that has already been converted. The electrical system and plumbing need renovation. We have already started on both on the first floor while living there. The toilet, bathroom, hallway, dining room, and kitchen have been completed. The ground floor is rented out, and the attic is empty. The roof is poorly insulated and covered with asbestos-containing fiber cement sheets. The roof will be newly insulated and re-covered, with one dormer facing west, and possibly photovoltaic panels. As part of the renovation, we want to combine the first floor and the attic.
Here is a floor plan of the first floor.
The fireplace with an external stainless steel flue is still in place (about 20 years old).
The first question is, where should the staircase go? The stairwell extends to the attic but currently has no radiators and is therefore a cold, shared staircase typical for multi-family houses. If it is to be used to connect the first floor and attic, the stairway downwards would need to be closed off and made warm and somewhat livable. Furthermore, it is quite far from what feels like the heart of the apartment (kitchen/dining/living room).
If the staircase is moved inside the apartment, as a spiral or straight stair, living space on both floors will be lost, but you don’t have to walk as far to the stairs, and it would be automatically heated. However, this requires cutting a hole in the concrete ceiling, which is a significant effort.
In the attic, except for the central chimney from the heating system, there are no load-bearing walls. The initial idea is to build a long dormer on the west side, as the bathroom there is directly above the bathroom on the first floor and is hardly usable due to the sloping roof. Also, the view to the west is nicer and the sun sets from that direction. On the other side, bedroom and children’s rooms could be located as the roof slope would be less of an issue there.
The ridge of the roof runs along the north-south axis of the house. Since photovoltaic panels might be installed on the roof, the external chimney flue is somewhat inconvenient. The chimney itself will remain. Because a filter will need to be retrofitted within the next few years, the chimney could possibly be replaced by a new one in a different position on the first floor to reduce its shadow impact. I am still undecided on this.
The roof will need an appointment with a structural engineer, as the load-bearing capacity is probably only sufficient for the lightweight fiber cement sheets. The facade is not planned to be insulated, only repainted when the scaffolding is up for the roof work.
Some of you might wonder why everything is not done at once with the family moving out in between. The opportunity to combine the two floors only arose this year. By this time, we had already started renovating half of the first-floor apartment. Since the roof now also needs to be replaced, this provides the maximum design flexibility.
Am I overlooking anything, or do you have any recommendations?
Best regards
I would like to introduce you to my project. I am open to ideas, suggestions, and feedback.
The house (built in 1967) has two full floors and an attic that has already been converted. The electrical system and plumbing need renovation. We have already started on both on the first floor while living there. The toilet, bathroom, hallway, dining room, and kitchen have been completed. The ground floor is rented out, and the attic is empty. The roof is poorly insulated and covered with asbestos-containing fiber cement sheets. The roof will be newly insulated and re-covered, with one dormer facing west, and possibly photovoltaic panels. As part of the renovation, we want to combine the first floor and the attic.
Here is a floor plan of the first floor.
The fireplace with an external stainless steel flue is still in place (about 20 years old).
The first question is, where should the staircase go? The stairwell extends to the attic but currently has no radiators and is therefore a cold, shared staircase typical for multi-family houses. If it is to be used to connect the first floor and attic, the stairway downwards would need to be closed off and made warm and somewhat livable. Furthermore, it is quite far from what feels like the heart of the apartment (kitchen/dining/living room).
If the staircase is moved inside the apartment, as a spiral or straight stair, living space on both floors will be lost, but you don’t have to walk as far to the stairs, and it would be automatically heated. However, this requires cutting a hole in the concrete ceiling, which is a significant effort.
In the attic, except for the central chimney from the heating system, there are no load-bearing walls. The initial idea is to build a long dormer on the west side, as the bathroom there is directly above the bathroom on the first floor and is hardly usable due to the sloping roof. Also, the view to the west is nicer and the sun sets from that direction. On the other side, bedroom and children’s rooms could be located as the roof slope would be less of an issue there.
The ridge of the roof runs along the north-south axis of the house. Since photovoltaic panels might be installed on the roof, the external chimney flue is somewhat inconvenient. The chimney itself will remain. Because a filter will need to be retrofitted within the next few years, the chimney could possibly be replaced by a new one in a different position on the first floor to reduce its shadow impact. I am still undecided on this.
The roof will need an appointment with a structural engineer, as the load-bearing capacity is probably only sufficient for the lightweight fiber cement sheets. The facade is not planned to be insulated, only repainted when the scaffolding is up for the roof work.
Some of you might wonder why everything is not done at once with the family moving out in between. The opportunity to combine the two floors only arose this year. By this time, we had already started renovating half of the first-floor apartment. Since the roof now also needs to be replaced, this provides the maximum design flexibility.
Am I overlooking anything, or do you have any recommendations?
Best regards
Kurpfaelzer schrieb:
and because when you get older you need a small single-story apartment, not a huge two-story houseI will check back later, but just briefly on this point for now: forget that. Your generation will already be regularly building new homes rather than remodeling when they get older.https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
Kurpfaelzer schrieb:
[...] because when you get older, you need a small, single-level apartment, not a huge two-story house. As a young family, you can still manage stairs. The idea is that we will live on the ground floor when we get older.However, when you are older, you no longer want to maintain an 800m2 (8,600 sq ft) garden, which is great for a young family with children. Many older people are also more concerned about burglars (for whatever reason), so apartments on upper floors are preferred – ideally with an elevator. I agree with @11ant; I’m less convinced that our generation will build again in old age, but more likely that they will move into a modern apartment with a nice balcony, an elevator, and barrier-free access. This could be rented using rental income from a rented-out house or after selling the house. In this neighborhood, 6 apartments of 100m2 (1,080 sq ft) each were built, very high quality and quite expensive. All but one were sold to neighbors over 70 years old.
Kurpfaelzer schrieb:
You are right, it is easier to work with proper plans. Yes, now I get the impression that more details are visible – not least the measurements. To summarize what I understand to be the scope of the project: aside from the modernization related to heating technology (what is planned for the exterior walls, insulation system on them?), the main focus is on breaking through the ceiling in the children's room on the upper floor (how is it supported?) and installing an internal staircase to connect the upper floor and attic into a maisonette.
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
Kurpfaelzer28 Mar 2020 22:20Exactly, that’s the point. There is already a staircase leading up to the attic, but it’s difficult to separate it properly without, for example, ending up stepping directly onto the stairs when exiting the apartment door. That’s why we need an internal staircase.
The room we are sacrificing on the upper floor is currently used as a study or storage room. The wall between this room and the living room will be removed, and the door to the study will be sealed off.
What do you mean by “supported”?
The exterior walls will not be insulated. Aside from the debate about whether this makes sense or not, the simple reason is that right next to the house there is a driveway leading to two garages behind the house. Currently, a car barely fits through. If we add 10 centimeters (4 inches) or more of insulation, the garages will no longer be accessible.
These are very interesting ideas for aging in place. I guess I will have to look for something new for later. But combining the upper floor and attic doesn’t really provide any benefit for me. The ground floor is not renovated and rented out. The attic is not renovated and not rented. The roof urgently needs repairs. So I’ll go with the upper floor plus attic and keep the rental income of 3 euros.
The room we are sacrificing on the upper floor is currently used as a study or storage room. The wall between this room and the living room will be removed, and the door to the study will be sealed off.
What do you mean by “supported”?
The exterior walls will not be insulated. Aside from the debate about whether this makes sense or not, the simple reason is that right next to the house there is a driveway leading to two garages behind the house. Currently, a car barely fits through. If we add 10 centimeters (4 inches) or more of insulation, the garages will no longer be accessible.
These are very interesting ideas for aging in place. I guess I will have to look for something new for later. But combining the upper floor and attic doesn’t really provide any benefit for me. The ground floor is not renovated and rented out. The attic is not renovated and not rented. The roof urgently needs repairs. So I’ll go with the upper floor plus attic and keep the rental income of 3 euros.
Kurpfaelzer schrieb:
But combining the ground floor and first floor instead of first and attic floor doesn’t really give me any advantage? With the newly uploaded plans, I consider the question answered, but in general, I would always review both options.
Kurpfaelzer schrieb:
What do you mean by supported? The reduced ceiling section has to rest on something somewhere – is it a precast concrete slab where entire panels can be removed to create the stairwell opening without affecting the rest of the ceiling?
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
Kurpfaelzer28 Mar 2020 23:14It is a concrete ceiling. I would assume that it rests on load-bearing walls and on the exterior wall.
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