Hello everyone,
We bought a two-family house from 1936 in June. More about the financing can be found in this thread. We are still very happy that we bought it. Our baby is due in December, and once our second child needs their own bedroom, the apartment will become too small. We have also visited the property quite often since then and are very pleased with the location. Everything from daycare to high school is within walking distance, along with plenty of sports clubs, and more.
Since the purchase, quite a bit has happened. Our financing was based on equity and a bank loan for the purchase alone. For the renovation, we planned to use capital from the sale of another property. The sale has now been completed and brought in slightly more than our optimistic estimate (365,000€ vs. 350,000€ optimistic expectation vs. 300,000€ minimum expectation). I have to say that selling caused me more headaches than buying the new house—even though it involved significantly less money. Especially the news about falling prices everywhere unsettled us and made us worry that the buyer might pull out. We did have multiple offers, including two in the same range, but the second highest bidder reacted quite badly to being rejected. That would have meant relisting, which, due to the increased costs of living since the agreement and the age of the house, probably would have led to a lower sale price. Once the notarized contract was signed, we were able to breathe a sigh of relief.
Now the work begins. We already have an architect who we have been consulting with over the past two years while looking at houses. She has so far done all the appointments and planning free of charge and invested a lot of time. We have already met on-site with a heating engineer, electrician, and flooring specialist. All have praised the structural condition and potential of the house so far, which is very reassuring.
Here is a picture of the current exterior from the garden side:
The house was insulated on the outside with 8cm (3 inches) of external thermal insulation composite system (ETICS) in 1996—but unfortunately, no major energy upgrades have been made since then. According to the energy certificate, the current demand is about 220 kWh/m²/a, which for 187 m² (2,013 sq ft) of living space would mean around 41,000 kWh per year. According to gas bills, however, the consumption in 2020 (the last year it was occupied) was only around 22,000 kWh for two households living there separately. That is still a lot, and of course, we want to modernize it. During the recent heatwave, it was actually cooler in the two full floors than in our already quite cool old apartment, which I see as a good sign. The house itself has cavity solid walls.
This means the following for us:
- Insulation of the top-floor ceiling: The attic has a huge footprint and covers roughly 80% of the developed attic space. Therefore, we decided to insulate the attic floor at first, which is more cost-effective than insulating the entire roof, since we won’t need that space anytime soon.
- Insulation of the basement ceiling
- Elimination of some thermal bridges
- Completely new windows and exterior doors throughout the house
Before buying, the architect said that should reduce the demand to around 150 kWh/m²/a or less, and further optimizations might no longer be cost-effective. Since then, energy costs have changed quite a bit… so we’ll see if we address anything else (would you, for example, recommend adding cavity insulation between the two masonry layers as well? Or would that not work well with the ETICS?). What’s your realistic assessment? I would obviously like to reduce it further, but I would prefer to avoid completely rebuilding the roof.
In addition:
- Replace pipes and wiring throughout the whole house
- New radiators
- Heat pump, if it makes sense / if the house can be heated properly with one
- If heat pump: photovoltaic system (the left side of the roof in the picture faces directly south)
That’s the energy-related part. Several other works are planned as well. This is the current floor plan—the ground floor and first floor are almost identical, but both floors have a nice passage between the two right-side rooms with a sliding door that needs to be preserved:
And the attic floor plan:
The rough plan is as follows:
Ground Floor:
First Floor:
Since both bathrooms need renewing anyway (photos from inside will follow later), we are moving them to the front, facing the street. This will free up space downstairs to open up the kitchen/dining area and allow a slightly larger bathroom upstairs than currently exists. Right now, we live with a 3 m² (32 sq ft) bathroom—it works for three people but is definitely not very comfortable 😀
I work almost 100% from home, so the office is on the ground floor. The attic layout will remain as is. It will include my partner’s craft/workroom, a guest room, and we have one extra room that is still undecided 🙂. The nice thing is that due to the steep roof, we even have higher ceilings on the attic floor (>2.60 m / 8.5 ft) than on the ground and first floors (2.55 m / 8.4 ft), with very little sloping (photos to follow).
Throughout the house, there are old wooden floorboards hidden under several layers of flooring. Fortunately, none are glued down but simply laid loose, so we already looked underneath with the flooring specialist and found the condition to be good. These floors will be restored rather than replaced! This is also a reason why we don’t want to install underfloor heating—the floorboards are too thick, probably fragile for removal, and underfloor heating would cause a chain reaction: the doors (which we also just want to restore/paint), the frames, and so on, would no longer fit. However, underfloor heating will probably be installed in the bathroom upstairs. The indoor staircase is another beautiful old wooden staircase that was hidden under carpet and will also only be restored as needed.
The architect’s first cost estimate is around 270,000€ for all measures (excluding photovoltaics). The three tradespeople who have been on site have more or less confirmed her rough calculation. Statics engineer and window fitter will visit next week—we’re excited 🙂
Current concerns:
- Can we achieve an energy level that makes a heat pump reasonably economical (we do have a lot of roof space for photovoltaics)?
- Is the rest of the cost estimate realistic?
- What surprises might still be waiting for us?
- When will it be completed? Target is early summer next year...
We look forward to your feedback!
We bought a two-family house from 1936 in June. More about the financing can be found in this thread. We are still very happy that we bought it. Our baby is due in December, and once our second child needs their own bedroom, the apartment will become too small. We have also visited the property quite often since then and are very pleased with the location. Everything from daycare to high school is within walking distance, along with plenty of sports clubs, and more.
Since the purchase, quite a bit has happened. Our financing was based on equity and a bank loan for the purchase alone. For the renovation, we planned to use capital from the sale of another property. The sale has now been completed and brought in slightly more than our optimistic estimate (365,000€ vs. 350,000€ optimistic expectation vs. 300,000€ minimum expectation). I have to say that selling caused me more headaches than buying the new house—even though it involved significantly less money. Especially the news about falling prices everywhere unsettled us and made us worry that the buyer might pull out. We did have multiple offers, including two in the same range, but the second highest bidder reacted quite badly to being rejected. That would have meant relisting, which, due to the increased costs of living since the agreement and the age of the house, probably would have led to a lower sale price. Once the notarized contract was signed, we were able to breathe a sigh of relief.
Now the work begins. We already have an architect who we have been consulting with over the past two years while looking at houses. She has so far done all the appointments and planning free of charge and invested a lot of time. We have already met on-site with a heating engineer, electrician, and flooring specialist. All have praised the structural condition and potential of the house so far, which is very reassuring.
Here is a picture of the current exterior from the garden side:
The house was insulated on the outside with 8cm (3 inches) of external thermal insulation composite system (ETICS) in 1996—but unfortunately, no major energy upgrades have been made since then. According to the energy certificate, the current demand is about 220 kWh/m²/a, which for 187 m² (2,013 sq ft) of living space would mean around 41,000 kWh per year. According to gas bills, however, the consumption in 2020 (the last year it was occupied) was only around 22,000 kWh for two households living there separately. That is still a lot, and of course, we want to modernize it. During the recent heatwave, it was actually cooler in the two full floors than in our already quite cool old apartment, which I see as a good sign. The house itself has cavity solid walls.
This means the following for us:
- Insulation of the top-floor ceiling: The attic has a huge footprint and covers roughly 80% of the developed attic space. Therefore, we decided to insulate the attic floor at first, which is more cost-effective than insulating the entire roof, since we won’t need that space anytime soon.
- Insulation of the basement ceiling
- Elimination of some thermal bridges
- Completely new windows and exterior doors throughout the house
Before buying, the architect said that should reduce the demand to around 150 kWh/m²/a or less, and further optimizations might no longer be cost-effective. Since then, energy costs have changed quite a bit… so we’ll see if we address anything else (would you, for example, recommend adding cavity insulation between the two masonry layers as well? Or would that not work well with the ETICS?). What’s your realistic assessment? I would obviously like to reduce it further, but I would prefer to avoid completely rebuilding the roof.
In addition:
- Replace pipes and wiring throughout the whole house
- New radiators
- Heat pump, if it makes sense / if the house can be heated properly with one
- If heat pump: photovoltaic system (the left side of the roof in the picture faces directly south)
That’s the energy-related part. Several other works are planned as well. This is the current floor plan—the ground floor and first floor are almost identical, but both floors have a nice passage between the two right-side rooms with a sliding door that needs to be preserved:
And the attic floor plan:
The rough plan is as follows:
Ground Floor:
First Floor:
Since both bathrooms need renewing anyway (photos from inside will follow later), we are moving them to the front, facing the street. This will free up space downstairs to open up the kitchen/dining area and allow a slightly larger bathroom upstairs than currently exists. Right now, we live with a 3 m² (32 sq ft) bathroom—it works for three people but is definitely not very comfortable 😀
I work almost 100% from home, so the office is on the ground floor. The attic layout will remain as is. It will include my partner’s craft/workroom, a guest room, and we have one extra room that is still undecided 🙂. The nice thing is that due to the steep roof, we even have higher ceilings on the attic floor (>2.60 m / 8.5 ft) than on the ground and first floors (2.55 m / 8.4 ft), with very little sloping (photos to follow).
Throughout the house, there are old wooden floorboards hidden under several layers of flooring. Fortunately, none are glued down but simply laid loose, so we already looked underneath with the flooring specialist and found the condition to be good. These floors will be restored rather than replaced! This is also a reason why we don’t want to install underfloor heating—the floorboards are too thick, probably fragile for removal, and underfloor heating would cause a chain reaction: the doors (which we also just want to restore/paint), the frames, and so on, would no longer fit. However, underfloor heating will probably be installed in the bathroom upstairs. The indoor staircase is another beautiful old wooden staircase that was hidden under carpet and will also only be restored as needed.
The architect’s first cost estimate is around 270,000€ for all measures (excluding photovoltaics). The three tradespeople who have been on site have more or less confirmed her rough calculation. Statics engineer and window fitter will visit next week—we’re excited 🙂
Current concerns:
- Can we achieve an energy level that makes a heat pump reasonably economical (we do have a lot of roof space for photovoltaics)?
- Is the rest of the cost estimate realistic?
- What surprises might still be waiting for us?
- When will it be completed? Target is early summer next year...
We look forward to your feedback!
WilderSueden schrieb:
When I first saw it, there was still something about a diary 😉I also felt like I had chosen the title accordingly 🙂
SaniererNRW123 schrieb:
OK, then I’ll throw my tenant’s apartment into the discussion. Same conditions, but with (33 cm) 13-inch radiators. Slightly higher flow temperature, otherwise the same result.The heating engineer also said he estimates that it could work well with slightly larger radiators. But first, we need the thermal insulation verification. I’m just unsure because, for example, 150 kWh/m² (14.0 kWh/sq ft) is the absolute maximum that can be set, and with a yearly performance factor of 2.8 for an air-to-air heat pump, that results in about 10,000 kWh of pure heating costs (without photovoltaics), which isn’t really more economical than gas heating... Of course, a 10 kWp solar power system would recover some of that, but probably at the wrong times?
By the way, if anyone has ideas for the planned floor plan, feel free to share. Especially anything that can be done without further structural changes. For example, what I’m not entirely happy with is that there isn’t a really good place for the coat closet.
- Right behind the front door won’t work because then you’d be directly on the stairs going to the ground floor (right) or basement (left).
- At the top of the stair landing, the coats would get in the way when going upstairs.
- In the hallway on the ground floor there’s probably the most space, but even there the coats somehow always get in the way.
The only idea I have so far is to take about 1 m² (11 sq ft) from the office in the upper right and make a coat closet there. That way it would be out of the way for all routes except directly from the office, but how to do that without changing the structure is still unclear to me.
As promised in the original post, here are some before pictures from the inside:
Ground Floor:
Living room looking towards the future dining area. The sliding door between these two rooms will remain, as well as the interior doors.
Current ground floor bathroom → will be relocated to the opposite side of the building as a guest toilet.
Kitchen:
Upper Floor:
Children’s room with wood paneling at the top. You can also see there are multiple layers of flooring, mostly just laid on top of each other with very few exceptions, not glued.
Bathroom → will be relocated to the opposite side of the building.
Stairwell – here the carpet will be removed, the wood sanded and painted:
Top Floor:
All rooms basically look like this – very high knee wall and ceiling height (2.65m (8 ft 8 in)) – resulting in almost fully usable living space. Beneath the “floor” there is well-preserved floorboard everywhere as well. Since nothing is glued down, we have already been able to look underneath many areas together with the floor specialist – so far it looks good!
Ground Floor:
Living room looking towards the future dining area. The sliding door between these two rooms will remain, as well as the interior doors.
Current ground floor bathroom → will be relocated to the opposite side of the building as a guest toilet.
Kitchen:
Upper Floor:
Children’s room with wood paneling at the top. You can also see there are multiple layers of flooring, mostly just laid on top of each other with very few exceptions, not glued.
Bathroom → will be relocated to the opposite side of the building.
Stairwell – here the carpet will be removed, the wood sanded and painted:
Top Floor:
All rooms basically look like this – very high knee wall and ceiling height (2.65m (8 ft 8 in)) – resulting in almost fully usable living space. Beneath the “floor” there is well-preserved floorboard everywhere as well. Since nothing is glued down, we have already been able to look underneath many areas together with the floor specialist – so far it looks good!
Progress is very slow. First step: gutting the interior. We want to save some money by doing part of the work and disposal ourselves. So far, we’ve already removed about 30 bags of wallpaper, each 120L (32 gallons). As expected, every wall is different :o
Here is the hallway, where there was fiberglass wallpaper that peeled off quite easily, but caused various superficial damages to the topcoat plaster:
On the ground floor, the plaster was hidden behind two layers of textured wallpaper and 5mm (0.2 inch) polystyrene interior insulation, so everything had to be scraped off (example from the living room). The walls look terrible, but this is also by far the worst room in terms of holes in the top plaster:
There is also polystyrene in the attic, but the plaster there is in much better condition with almost no damage.
In the kitchen on the ground floor, there was this built-in pantry made of masonry:
You can already see the sledgehammer in the picture, which was used to break it down:
Problem: Apparently, a thermal bridge was deliberately created here in the past. While the house is generally built with a cavity wall, this pantry is a solid wall only. That means there is currently a small hole in the wall where you can see between the two brick layers. This will need to be rebuilt...
On the upper floor, the first ceiling panels have also had to come down:
Some progress on the contractor front as well: We are waiting for quotes from the painter and the flooring specialist who will refurbish the floors. However, progress is, as expected, rather slow. For example, the architect couldn’t find anyone among the preferred window manufacturers willing or able to provide quotes right now due to the large fluctuations in gas prices. So she will put this trade out to tender. Well... we’ll see.
We’ve also started thinking about the kitchen. This might not feel urgent yet, but since we’re expecting child #2 in December, we want to arrange as much as possible now. We can already order the appliances and have the seller store them.
These are two quick options put together in about 30 minutes using the Ikea planner. The white column is the chimney, which will stay to allow heating pipes and electrical wiring to run through the house.
The upper layout looks more symmetrical visually, but the lower one is probably more practical (more light — there’s also a balcony above the door, which blocks light, and less obstruction from the door to the outside). The island measures about 1.2 x 2.1m (about 4 x 7 feet) minus the 80cm (31 inch) cooktop width on the side without the chimney. The countertop along the wall is approximately 2.1m (7 feet) long minus the sink. We do have quite a few appliances that need a place (large Kenwood kitchen machine 50 x 35cm (20 x 14 inches), Sodastream, small coffee maker, kettle, large bread box 40 x 40cm (16 x 16 inches), bread slicer). The bread slicer is planned to be hidden in a drawer, and we might replace the kettle with an induction version? Otherwise, the available space should be sufficient to place the appliances properly, right?
What do you think — does this make sense? 🙂
Here is the hallway, where there was fiberglass wallpaper that peeled off quite easily, but caused various superficial damages to the topcoat plaster:
On the ground floor, the plaster was hidden behind two layers of textured wallpaper and 5mm (0.2 inch) polystyrene interior insulation, so everything had to be scraped off (example from the living room). The walls look terrible, but this is also by far the worst room in terms of holes in the top plaster:
There is also polystyrene in the attic, but the plaster there is in much better condition with almost no damage.
In the kitchen on the ground floor, there was this built-in pantry made of masonry:
You can already see the sledgehammer in the picture, which was used to break it down:
Problem: Apparently, a thermal bridge was deliberately created here in the past. While the house is generally built with a cavity wall, this pantry is a solid wall only. That means there is currently a small hole in the wall where you can see between the two brick layers. This will need to be rebuilt...
On the upper floor, the first ceiling panels have also had to come down:
Some progress on the contractor front as well: We are waiting for quotes from the painter and the flooring specialist who will refurbish the floors. However, progress is, as expected, rather slow. For example, the architect couldn’t find anyone among the preferred window manufacturers willing or able to provide quotes right now due to the large fluctuations in gas prices. So she will put this trade out to tender. Well... we’ll see.
We’ve also started thinking about the kitchen. This might not feel urgent yet, but since we’re expecting child #2 in December, we want to arrange as much as possible now. We can already order the appliances and have the seller store them.
These are two quick options put together in about 30 minutes using the Ikea planner. The white column is the chimney, which will stay to allow heating pipes and electrical wiring to run through the house.
The upper layout looks more symmetrical visually, but the lower one is probably more practical (more light — there’s also a balcony above the door, which blocks light, and less obstruction from the door to the outside). The island measures about 1.2 x 2.1m (about 4 x 7 feet) minus the 80cm (31 inch) cooktop width on the side without the chimney. The countertop along the wall is approximately 2.1m (7 feet) long minus the sink. We do have quite a few appliances that need a place (large Kenwood kitchen machine 50 x 35cm (20 x 14 inches), Sodastream, small coffee maker, kettle, large bread box 40 x 40cm (16 x 16 inches), bread slicer). The bread slicer is planned to be hidden in a drawer, and we might replace the kettle with an induction version? Otherwise, the available space should be sufficient to place the appliances properly, right?
What do you think — does this make sense? 🙂
leschaf schrieb:
Problem: It seems that a thermal bridge was deliberately included here back then. While the house is generally built with a double wall, the closet is only single-walled, meaning we currently have a small hole in the wall where we can see between the two brick layers. This area will need to be rebuilt...A typical case of unclear explanation, I would say. The system being described as a "non-powered mini fridge" ;-) was fundamentally intended that way.https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
Tolentino schrieb:
Interesting project. I’ve already noticed that for such an old house, it’s relatively bright inside. I like that.Yes – and it will get even brighter. The new windows will be slightly larger (if the price is reasonable), extending downward with a lower, but still code-compliant, sill height.
Not much is happening at the moment. The structural engineer came two weeks ago and basically gave the green light, but he won’t have time to calculate the structural design until November (the price fits within the budget). Our architect also needs to visit the city archives again (appointment next week) to obtain missing documents. We already have the old structural calculations (quote: “This is the shortest structural report I’ve ever seen”), but apparently there is more. We didn’t receive much from the previous owners. Only once we know the structural requirements can we talk to the main builder about things like steel beams and their placement.
We also met with a second heating contractor, who is interested in taking on the work. However, to get a quote, we first need the thermal insulation certificate, which should be prepared next week.
The first painting quote really shocked us: for all floors (including the basement and door refinishing), they want a gross price of €36,000, almost double our estimate. The architect thinks it’s more of a deterrent offer; for a previous client, the plastering alone was supposed to cost half that. Well, I’m quite relaxed about the painting since we have good contacts. Hopefully, the quote for heating and related work won’t deviate as much from the cost estimate.
Do you have any opinions on the following prices (per square meter)?
Plastering work: smooth plastering, sanding, and priming → €15
Plastering work: rough patching, sanding, and priming → €11
Wallpapering with smooth fleece → €9
Painting → €7
Sanding, priming, and white painting of doors → €36
We haven’t received the quote for floor preparation yet… but there’s still time for that.
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