ᐅ Assessment & Assistance for a Semi-Detached House, Approximately 180 sqm, DIY Floor Plan

Created on: 10 Feb 2023 13:28

Hello everyone,

we have purchased a 337 m² (3623 ft²) plot on which we now want to build our semi-detached house. We are in discussions with various construction companies, but their approaches vary widely. Since we are often presented with floor plans based on our key specifications that we don’t like at all (often a standard run-of-the-mill semi-detached house), we have started to think about it ourselves. It’s also quite different that one company has a problem with the structural engineering for a ground floor measuring 8 x 12 m (26 x 39 ft), while another does not. Our wish is also to have the technical equipment on the attic floor (see separate thread).

Now I would like to get your opinion on our DIY floor plan. Does it make sense? What have we overlooked? Constructive suggestions are welcome, as I don’t really like, for example, the bathroom/office solution on the upper floor.

Development Plan/Restrictions
Plot size: 337 m² (3623 ft²)
Slope: no
Site coverage ratio: 0.35
Floor area ratio: 0.7
Building envelope, building line and boundary: 12 m length (39 ft), plot is 11.5 m wide (38 ft), so effectively 8.5 m (28 ft)???
Edge development
Number of parking spaces: 2
Number of floors: 2.5
Roof style: pitched roof, 30 degrees, no knee wall
Architectural style
Garden side facing fully south
Maximum heights/limits: 12 m length (39 ft), 6.5 m eaves height (21 ft)
Further requirements: adjacent semi-detached house will also be built later without a basement with dimensions of 8.5 x 10.1 m (28 x 33 ft), smaller than ours

Document explaining maximum eaves height and intersection line between exterior wall and roof

Homeowners’ Requirements
Architectural style, roof shape, building type: no special requirements
Basement, floors: no basement, 2.5 floors
Number and age of residents: 38, 38, 2, x 😉
Room requirements ground floor, upper floor: ground floor airy, bright, spacious; upper floor 3 bedrooms, bathroom, office
Office: family use or home office? Home office
Number of overnight guests per year: a couple every three months or so
Open or closed architecture: open
Traditional or modern construction: modern
Open kitchen, cooking island: open with island
Number of dining seats: 6
Fireplace: no
Music/sound system wall: no, TV on wall
Balcony, roof terrace: terrace (added later)
Garage, carport: none, as garage space here is very disadvantageous
Utility garden, greenhouse
Additional wishes/special features/daily routine, including reasons why something should or should not be

- House technology preferably in the attic since we usually spend most time on the ground floor and want plenty of space there
- Avoid standard floor plan with U-shaped staircase if possible, therefore the compromise of a V-shaped staircase with glass railing on the ground floor, open without storage under the stairs, winding stairs connecting ground floor and attic
- Lots of window area, lift-and-slide windows on the ground floor with external blinds because of south-facing side
- Kitchen and lounge somewhat separated and not too close to each other
- Ceiling height on the ground floor at least 2.65 m (8.7 ft)
- Make use of sloped ceilings in the attic space

House Design
Who designed it: DIY
What do you like most? Why? Open living space, open stairway
What do you dislike? Why? Bathroom/office on the upper floor
Price estimate according to architect/designer: 450k
Personal budget limit for house, including fittings: 550k
Preferred heating technology: heat pump

If you have to give up on something, which details/extensions
- Can be waived: pantry on ground floor, “even more” windows
- Cannot give up: separate office

Why is the design the way it is now? For example,
A mixture of many examples from various magazines…
What do you think makes it especially good or bad? Good because it is not standard and conveys a generous, bright sense of space

Site plan of a residential area with buildings, roads, and green spaces; yellow marked area.

Basement floor plan: attic space, technical room/laundry/bathroom, other rooms (25.28, 10.79, 30.96 m²).

Ground floor plan: car on open parking space, entrance area, open living/dining area.

Floor plan: large room 62.02 m² with adjacent rooms 4.12 m², 3.27 m² and 9.71 m².

Open living area with dining table on the left, sofa on the right, stairs on the right; bathroom and pantry.

Floor plan of an apartment with bedroom, two kids’ rooms, office, hallway and staircase.

Floor plan of a house with six rooms: bedroom, office, child 1, child 2, and two other rooms.

Floor plan of a house: living area, bedroom, kitchen, technical room and attic space

ypg22 Feb 2023 23:51

#55

I sketched something last week but stopped because I don’t think it’s possible to convince you with arguments 🙄
this is what came out
or here’s an impression of the attic floor

Floor plan of a living area: living room, kitchen with island, hallway, WC, gallery, pantry.

Floor plan of a live-work studio: atrium on the left, studio on the right, storage area at the top, technical room, utility room, storage at the bottom left.

3D rendering of a loft room with bed, standing person, wooden floor, and stairs.

K a t j a23 Feb 2023 09:02

#56

Mar_Mar schrieb:

Appointment with ELK: "What is important to you? What do you expect from me as a consultant?" Me: "Transparency: I don’t want any surprises and want to keep the costs under control"... then the offer came on a single DIN A4 page... okay, and already calculated without the foundation slab.

They might not offer the foundation slab at all. That’s like being disappointed that your car dealer doesn’t build your driveway when you buy a new BMW. One builder manufactures wooden houses in their factory, another digs into the ground and pours foundation slabs. Most companies already work with regular partners so they can provide you with a complete quote, but not necessarily all of them. For me, that would not be a reason to exclude someone.

Regarding the dormer: what does the development plan or zoning permission say about that? Did I miss something?

Mar_Mar23 Feb 2023 16:02

#57

ypg schrieb:

Yes… that could be the case! In many ways.

Thank you, very kind. Where exactly did we meet in person again?

ypg schrieb:

So what? At least it’s bright. You’re planning a barrier “all the way to the right” anyway, so you have to walk in a zigzag. Keep in mind that with your south orientation, your house won’t necessarily be bright. I would use every possibility available. And as I already said: you need a shaft, which in your case would run across the kitchen, including the toilet’s soil pipe.

Okay, so I understand correctly that it’s better if the air source heat pump is placed at the front bottom left of the house (facing it) and the cables then run in a zigzag upwards rather than straight up?

Which barrier are you referring to? The very right wall of the semi-detached house? The stairwell?

As far as I know, there is a mathematical formula to calculate how much window area you need for a certain room. According to my information, we are well above that. A 5m (16 feet) lift-and-slide window plus 2m (6.5 feet) fixed glazing in the dining/living area, the kitchen has a 1.6m (5.25 feet) floor-to-ceiling window on the side. The hallway also has an additional floor-to-ceiling window and a glass door between hallway and kitchen. How many more windows should I add? There is barely enough space left for a cabinet as it is.

The note about the shaft is a good point. It used to be shown in the plans mostly in the pantry. The toilet soil pipe is on the outer wall in the pantry. But I will gladly bring that up again for discussion.

Where could an open sightline be inserted?

ypg schrieb:

What do you expect? You don’t even have a contract yet and already time-consuming expectations?! Besides, as we see ourselves, some ideas are not even feasible. I wouldn’t lift a finger, at least not when there’s other work waiting.

Yes, I do expect some commitment if I’m being asked to sign something costing 500k and being the biggest investment of my life. And I don’t think it’s too much to ask to know *before* signing a) what this will cost and b) exactly what I am getting for that price. Of course, it’s not about small tweaks here or there. But I’m not going to commit upfront just so that someone even thinks about working on it. I work in sales myself and when I think about how many offers and contracts, how many rounds of discussion, hours of driving I’ve invested just so someone would buy two IBM servers from me? Or what happened quite often, someone else got the deal... But maybe next time I’ll try having the customer sign an order first before I start writing configs. Maybe it’ll work.

ypg schrieb:

Please familiarize yourself with your attic floor plan before saying things like that. I would refuse to crawl on all fours to get to a bed. Even if it’s just once a year. That’s bad for the back…

I don’t know if you’re all only 1.30m (4 feet 3 inches) tall sitting on futons… but if I sit on a 45cm (18 inches) sofa with my female height, I need about 1.50m (5 feet) of headroom. I’m not saying you can’t have a bed up there in principle, but not like that. Heating: at that low height it would probably scrape the roof… The toilet under the 2-meter (6.5 feet) height limit is not up to code. And the toilet’s wastewater pipe is tricky, especially if it runs through the kitchen, possibly near the stove 😉

There is NO spacious attic cellar.

That would relax things somewhat, but there would also have to be a distance maintained from the neighbor’s wall, probably 1.25m (4 feet 1 inch).

That’s definitely a point I need to reconsider. The roof will be as shown in the development plan. I need to rethink how to use the space upstairs. What is the alternative? Perhaps the bathroom could be moved more toward the center of the room and the toilet placed by the outer wall because of the soil pipe.

Mar_Mar23 Feb 2023 16:13

#58

K a t j a schrieb:

They might never offer that. It’s like being disappointed with your car dealer because they don’t build your street when you buy a new BMW. One builds wooden houses in their factory, another digs into the ground and pours concrete slabs. Most companies already have common partners so they can put together a complete offer for you, but not necessarily all of them. For me, that wouldn’t be a reason to exclude someone.

Regarding the dormer: what does the zoning plan say? Did I miss that somewhere?

Hello Katja,
you’re basically right, it could be. However, the entire offer, including 3 different finishing options, was fitted onto one DIN A4 page. And our neighbors, who also requested an offer from ELK (though a different sales representative), received one including the concrete slab, and it was structured very differently. Admittedly, I already found the representative very unappealing during the first conversation, and somehow he had lost before he even started… well, then there was the offer. If everything else had been right, we would have talked further, but at some point you have to make a choice. Besides, we decided against a timber frame house anyway.

Regarding the dormer, it’s stated in the zoning plan: we have this little asterisk:

Excerpt of a building regulation text page with rules on roof pitches, roof types, and distances.

11ant23 Feb 2023 17:04

#59

Mar_Mar schrieb:

Yes, I expect some investment when I am asked to sign something that costs 500k and will be the biggest investment of my life.

Regarding the architectural services you can expect as a client, I have already mentioned that these are focused on obtaining the building permit / planning permission and not on optimizing designs. As a prospective client – meaning you are still in the acquisition phase – you need to lower your expectations further. At this stage, it is only about demonstrating the company's cost-effectiveness compared to competitors. I can gladly email you what I recently commented on a LinkedIn post about this. If the unfortunately common contemporary expectations of potential clients determined how much the “puppets” would have to dance during inquiries, every builder would likely have spent the entire previous month’s profit on acquisition efforts by midday on the fifth.

https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/

K a t j a23 Feb 2023 17:11

#60

50% for the dormer would make a difference. Do you have the money and the willingness to invest in that?

ᐅ Assessment & Assistance for a Semi-Detached House, Approximately 180 sqm, DIY Floor Plan

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