ᐅ What aspects of building your house were the most stressful or challenging for you?
Created on: 4 Mar 2022 08:29
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Pinkiponk
I think this thread could be helpful as a trigger warning for new home builders or maybe to reassure them that their own experience was quite relaxed:
Interestingly, the first response we usually received after telling someone we were building a house was "Good luck with that"; whether from a notary, loan advisor, colleagues, acquaintances, relatives, or friends. Was it similar for you? And to get to the main question of this thread: "What has cost you the most nerves?" My usual answer was that we are not building ourselves, we are having it built, to which the response almost always was, "I thought the same once."
For us, so far, the biggest challenge has been arranging construction water and temporary power on the building plot. (Yes, also the land search since we always had about a 500km (310 miles) one-way trip to the desired building region, but that was balanced out by the enjoyment of the process. The price increase of about 15% was also a factor. I would need to check the exact figure again.)
Interestingly, the first response we usually received after telling someone we were building a house was "Good luck with that"; whether from a notary, loan advisor, colleagues, acquaintances, relatives, or friends. Was it similar for you? And to get to the main question of this thread: "What has cost you the most nerves?" My usual answer was that we are not building ourselves, we are having it built, to which the response almost always was, "I thought the same once."
For us, so far, the biggest challenge has been arranging construction water and temporary power on the building plot. (Yes, also the land search since we always had about a 500km (310 miles) one-way trip to the desired building region, but that was balanced out by the enjoyment of the process. The price increase of about 15% was also a factor. I would need to check the exact figure again.)
11ant schrieb:
In that case, according to the main question, you’d actually be the biggest troublemaker since you’re still keeping the kitchen builder1 hanging ;-)I’d say the stress and pressure we put on ourselves is usually the biggest obstacle and the biggest drain on nerves during a house build 😀
This applies, of course, to all aspects—not just the kitchen...
But without that pressure, things probably wouldn’t work out as well and it would be pretty boring too 🙂
We are still in the earthworks phase, but so far an archaeologist has significantly delayed the work and threatened to halt everything. Despite a 99.99% probability of finding nothing, every shovel load was meticulously examined. Unplanned additional costs so far amount to 4,500€. The excavation company took twice as long as planned, plus there were extreme price increases due to expensive diesel.
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FoxMulder2410 Mar 2022 08:43The most frustrating part for us was the utility connections.
Gas, water, and telephone were already connected on the plot… but electricity was not. This only became apparent when the earthworks contractor couldn’t find any cables.
The utility provider hadn’t connected it because they didn’t want to wait 20 years to recover the connection costs.
So we had to escalate the issue with the provider.
Two weeks later, the foundation slab was poured. We had to borrow electricity from the neighbor for two days. On the third day, a second construction crew showed up unexpectedly to lay the electrical cable.
The best part was that this crew had different plans about where the cable was supposed to enter the property. I had been sent other plans. Now the cable runs straight across the garden instead of alongside the water line under the driveway.
The construction water supply was installed on Friday. The foundation slabs were scheduled for Monday.
During a check on Friday afternoon, I noticed that the construction water faucet was broken. Of course, the municipal utility was already closed for the weekend. Luckily, someone came first thing Monday morning to replace the faucet.
And don’t even get me started on the telephone provider.
More than a year in advance, we submitted the application through the builder’s portal. Only after a lot of persistence did we manage to get an emergency appointment with a technician on moving day to connect the telephone socket. If you don’t call every few weeks to check the status of the application, it seems nothing will happen.
The construction phase itself went smoothly. Minor defects were always immediately fixed by the general contractor. The waiting time between signing the contract, choosing finishes, submitting the building permit / planning permission, and starting construction was a bit annoying but manageable. For us, it went quite quickly. The time between signing and moving in was 17 months.
Gas, water, and telephone were already connected on the plot… but electricity was not. This only became apparent when the earthworks contractor couldn’t find any cables.
The utility provider hadn’t connected it because they didn’t want to wait 20 years to recover the connection costs.
So we had to escalate the issue with the provider.
Two weeks later, the foundation slab was poured. We had to borrow electricity from the neighbor for two days. On the third day, a second construction crew showed up unexpectedly to lay the electrical cable.
The best part was that this crew had different plans about where the cable was supposed to enter the property. I had been sent other plans. Now the cable runs straight across the garden instead of alongside the water line under the driveway.
The construction water supply was installed on Friday. The foundation slabs were scheduled for Monday.
During a check on Friday afternoon, I noticed that the construction water faucet was broken. Of course, the municipal utility was already closed for the weekend. Luckily, someone came first thing Monday morning to replace the faucet.
And don’t even get me started on the telephone provider.
More than a year in advance, we submitted the application through the builder’s portal. Only after a lot of persistence did we manage to get an emergency appointment with a technician on moving day to connect the telephone socket. If you don’t call every few weeks to check the status of the application, it seems nothing will happen.
The construction phase itself went smoothly. Minor defects were always immediately fixed by the general contractor. The waiting time between signing the contract, choosing finishes, submitting the building permit / planning permission, and starting construction was a bit annoying but manageable. For us, it went quite quickly. The time between signing and moving in was 17 months.
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Aloha_Lars10 Mar 2022 09:30FoxMulder24 schrieb:
And please, no talk about the telecom provider.
> We submitted the application through the builder’s portal more than a year in advance. After a lot of persistence, we managed to get an emergency appointment with a technician to connect the network termination unit (NTU) on the move-in day. If you don’t call every few weeks to check the status of your application, nothing seems to happen. I can only confirm that. I submitted the application to the telecom company in April 2020, and they only came in March 2021 to connect the cable... That definitely cost me the most nerves, especially since we moved in November 2020 and I was working from home.
Vodafone was very efficient and quick. The partner companies responsible for the cable installation and the distribution point inside the house were also very friendly and easy to work with. On my construction site, I now have a 1000 Mbps cable connection, and the Vodafone Wi-Fi router covers the entire house (probably only at 2.4 GHz, but that’s fine). In my temporary office (which will later become a bedroom) located exactly on the opposite side of the house and on a different floor, I’m still getting 250 Mbps over Wi-Fi. It will probably be different when my wife and child are streaming constantly and the TV in the living room is streaming on its own, but then I have a wired LAN connection in my office. I had originally planned to install two Ubiquiti In-Wall APs, but now I’m considering saving that expense. I even had Wi-Fi on the construction site restroom.
Let’s hope it continues like this.
Let’s hope it continues like this.
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Pinkiponk10 Mar 2022 11:37Maxwell8 schrieb:
We are still in the earthworks phase, but so far an archaeologist has caused significant delays and even threatened to stop all work completely. I’m sorry to hear that for you and your family, and threats are of course absolutely unacceptable. May I ask, out of interest, if you are building in a particularly archaeologically sensitive area?
FoxMulder24 schrieb:
Gas, water, and telephone connections were available on the plot… electricity was not. It was similar for us. Since we bought the plot as a serviced lot, we dug ourselves to find the electricity connection because the utility company had no relevant connection records and their first employee on site found nothing. We did find something: a yellow plastic tape with a big, clear warning "Caution High Voltage Cable" and various cables. We were really proud and took photos of ourselves wearing hiking boots, rugged clothing, and holding shovels by the trench (like old-time gold prospectors from the Wild West 🙂 ), coincidentally, it was really bad weather with storms and light hail. The photos with the nicely arranged "Caution High Voltage Cable" tape were sent to the utility provider, friends, acquaintances, relatives, the construction manager, and so on. 🙂 Then an employee from the utility company came back and thoroughly searched again, digging himself, using sensors, electronic devices, etc., but found nothing. The cables we found turned out to be telecommunications cables. Regarding our so important piece of evidence, the yellow plastic tape "Caution High Voltage Cable", he just casually said, "They use whatever they have on site." 🙂
So once again, we jumped like tigers and landed like doormats. 🙂
Anyway, it was interesting to watch how the electricity was eventually routed from the opposite sidewalk onto our property. If you stood in the right spot on the ground, you could feel the vibrations and knew where the “routing device” was at the moment.
Dear Hampshire, YPG, and Pagoni2020, please, please come back.
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