Hello everyone,
We are currently planning the construction of our house and many questions keep coming up.
Our plot (approximately 770 m² (8,293 ft²)) is on a slope, which, based on quite a bit of reading, leads us to consider building our house with a basement, as we would rather not have to dig the house into the hill and look out onto an earth wall. I have attached some excerpts from the development plan.
The plot is rather elongated (about 20 m (66 ft) wide and 40 m (131 ft) deep) and slopes upward from the street. According to the Geoportal Hessen, we have an elevation difference of about 3 m (10 ft) over the 40 m (131 ft) depth.
Our first thought was: "Well, then we’ll just build with a basement." However, after examining the specific height specifications from the development plan, the eaves height of 5 m (measured from the street’s road surface edge, the highest point, measured vertically in front of the building center) might cause an issue. With the 5 m eaves height limit, wouldn’t we have to embed about half of the basement underground?
Our idea was that the basement (lower ground floor) would be level with the street at the front, allowing direct access from there, and at the back, the living area (ground floor) would have level access to the garden.
How do you assess the dimensions and requirements in the development plan?
Over the weekend, we visited a model home exhibition in Bad Vilbel and spoke with a representative from Fingerhaus, who suggested a kind of compact basement with access only from the outside, not from inside the house. Does anyone know this type of basement or have experience with it? Would it also be possible to build a “regular” basement in that case?
We roughly calculated the costs:
House (turnkey) according to Fingerhaus (Type Sento B): about 300,000€
Foundation + walls: about 20,000€
Additional features: about 50,000€
Basement + incidental building costs: about 80,000€
Do you consider these figures roughly realistic?
Can anyone recommend building companies from the Mittelhessen (Central Hesse) region? Can construction companies provide cost estimates based on the available data, or do we first need a soil survey and precise height measurements?
So many questions, but you have to start somewhere.
Thank you very much in advance for any tips or answers!
We are currently planning the construction of our house and many questions keep coming up.
Our plot (approximately 770 m² (8,293 ft²)) is on a slope, which, based on quite a bit of reading, leads us to consider building our house with a basement, as we would rather not have to dig the house into the hill and look out onto an earth wall. I have attached some excerpts from the development plan.
The plot is rather elongated (about 20 m (66 ft) wide and 40 m (131 ft) deep) and slopes upward from the street. According to the Geoportal Hessen, we have an elevation difference of about 3 m (10 ft) over the 40 m (131 ft) depth.
Our first thought was: "Well, then we’ll just build with a basement." However, after examining the specific height specifications from the development plan, the eaves height of 5 m (measured from the street’s road surface edge, the highest point, measured vertically in front of the building center) might cause an issue. With the 5 m eaves height limit, wouldn’t we have to embed about half of the basement underground?
Our idea was that the basement (lower ground floor) would be level with the street at the front, allowing direct access from there, and at the back, the living area (ground floor) would have level access to the garden.
How do you assess the dimensions and requirements in the development plan?
Over the weekend, we visited a model home exhibition in Bad Vilbel and spoke with a representative from Fingerhaus, who suggested a kind of compact basement with access only from the outside, not from inside the house. Does anyone know this type of basement or have experience with it? Would it also be possible to build a “regular” basement in that case?
We roughly calculated the costs:
House (turnkey) according to Fingerhaus (Type Sento B): about 300,000€
Foundation + walls: about 20,000€
Additional features: about 50,000€
Basement + incidental building costs: about 80,000€
Do you consider these figures roughly realistic?
Can anyone recommend building companies from the Mittelhessen (Central Hesse) region? Can construction companies provide cost estimates based on the available data, or do we first need a soil survey and precise height measurements?
So many questions, but you have to start somewhere.
Thank you very much in advance for any tips or answers!
H
Hausi190913 Jan 2021 13:3111ant schrieb:
I would remove the “somewhat.” And you should definitely hire an architect instead of a draftsman, not least because a) they will discourage you from building such a huge smoking balcony for the child, and b) they can usually manage not to have to increase the eave heights on both sides by “50 to 80 cm” (or rather: want to, because I’m counting on the reasonableness of the building authorities).
The house is way too big. Unless you’re dual-income earners at income level A14, it’s beyond your means – but at the very least, it offers endless space where you don’t need it. Learn to get a better sense of dimensions. And yes, the suspicion is correct: per square meter, a roof terrace easily costs at least as much as enclosed living space. Yes, we definitely want a knee wall of at least 1.20 m (4 feet) on the upper floor, but at the same time, we don’t want to sink so low next to the footpath with our terrace that everyone is looking down on us. That probably won’t work without an exemption. The roof terrace can of course be much smaller, but then won’t there be issues with the one permitted full floor? I understood that it needs to be that size for the number of storeys.
We also agree that the house is currently oversized and we have no problem with it being smaller. We definitely still need to improve our sense of scale, thanks for the advice!
Does it make any cost difference whether the extension has a flat roof that is not accessible or if it is used as a roof terrace?
Thanks for your comments!
You need to reduce more than 20 sq meters (215 sq feet). Please provide more details about your budget. How much have you planned for additional construction costs including earthworks, the house including fixtures, outdoor facilities including planned carports or garages, and furniture including the kitchen?
H
Hausi190913 Jan 2021 13:47Crossy schrieb:
You’ll need to reduce more than 20 sqm (215 sq ft). Please provide more details about the budget. How much have you planned for additional construction costs including groundwork, the house including fittings, outdoor areas including planned carports or garages, and furniture including the kitchen?House including fittings: 440,000€
Additional construction costs including groundwork: 60,000€
Carport + outdoor areas: 40,000€
Furniture including kitchen: 40,000€
This is roughly the current plan.
Hausi1909 schrieb:
Yes, we want at least a knee wall of 1.20 m (4 feet) on the upper floor, but at the same time, we don't want to dig ourselves in too much with our terrace next to the sidewalk so that everyone can look down on us. Without an exemption, this probably won't work. The roof terrace can of course be much smaller, but then wouldn't there be issues with the one permitted full storey? I understood that this is required for the number of storeys in that size. No one will be looking down on a house of this size, rather they would mock it as a "Dr. von Großkotz" villa. A knee wall of 120 cm (4 feet) with an overly large attic and removed knee wall windows can be better realized as a dwarf wall in this case, but a freelance architect would have to verify that themselves. And when counting full storeys, you definitely don’t need to provide full-floor accessibility as well. So, we already have the plan: dwarf wall instead of knee wall – this will also nominally right-size the attic – the floor area-related surface on the ground floor can be reduced – which benefits the garden, so the smaller roof terrace is not a loss. And as a small side effect, the palace also becomes an affordable house. The fee you deduct from the architect, feel free to send it to me 🙂
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
H
Hausi190913 Jan 2021 14:0711ant schrieb:
No one will really look down on a house of this size; they might rather mock it as "Villa Dr. von Großkotz." A knee wall of 120cm (48 inches) with an overly large attic and knee wall windows removed can be better executed here as a dwarf wall, which a freelance architect should be able to verify themselves. Also, with a full-story building height, there’s no need to provide full-area walkability. So, the plan is basically set: dwarf wall instead of knee wall — that way the attic is nominally rightsized — the floor-area surplus due to the number of stories on the ground floor can be removed — which benefits the garden, making the reduced roof terrace not a loss. And as a small side effect, the palace also becomes an affordable house. The fees you save from the architect, you can happily transfer to me 🙂Okay, thanks for your explanation.
Just to clarify for me: We could reduce the roof terrace to about 8-10 sqm (86-108 sq ft) if we lower the knee wall on the house and then move the interior wall forward (dwarf wall?), allowing us to realize a dwarf wall of 1.20m (48 inches) without moving into two full stories. What knee wall height/roof pitch would we need for that?
That might be worth considering 😉
I see that you can stick with the 30° roof pitch. On the ground floor, about 1.0 to 1.5 m (3 to 5 feet) of the width will be cut out from the living-kitchen area, and the exterior wall above will be shifted over the living room wall; from a knee wall height of 50 cm (20 inches) to a dwarf wall of 120 cm (47 inches), you then reach about 1.2 m (4 feet). How much bay window is still actually "necessary" can now be calculated by the architect.
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
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