ᐅ Avoid Mistakes When Building Your Second Home: Builder or Architect?
Created on: 13 Feb 2024 11:39
R
RotesDach
Hello forum,
In 2020, we built a new single-family home. However, for various reasons, we are not completely satisfied and are considering building again. We want to take our time with this (time frame 5-10 years) to be really sure about what exactly we want to change. In the meantime, we can also save more equity and observe everyday life with the children. From our experience, daily life with 3-4 children requires a lot of flexibility in the house because the needs of all family members seem to change quickly. That is why we have set quite a long time frame.
When we started planning the house in 2019, we didn’t always make the right decisions in hindsight. With the first and later the second child, and then the lockdown, we could not view or visit everything that was installed beforehand. Also, contact with the architect from the homebuilding company was quite limited. We often simply lacked proper advice.
My question to you is: How can we avoid making the same mistakes again in the next build? We always had to make decisions very quickly and often had no solid basis to decide. We would have liked to have quick access to prices and services; this just wasn’t available. For example, if we planned an additional window or increased the living area, we received a new total price and could only guess how much the extra cost was.
We found that the homebuilding company only builds in the way they usually do, meaning when we asked for something unusual, they said it wasn’t possible. For example, we wanted a large panoramic glass window wall that could slide open barrier-free. They said this wasn’t possible for structural reasons in our house. It seemed likely that our builder simply did not have this kind of feature in their program, or the profit margin on such a request was too low for them.
What frustrates me most is the roof. It is not usable as living space. It is a low pyramid roof made of nail plate trusses. There is not enough standing height for living space, and the structure is not suitable for conversion. We never discussed the roof with the architect at the time. The catalog house our free planning was based on originally had a gable roof—exactly what we would wish for today. The architect kept talking about a "town villa" we would be building, and we eventually adopted that term. As laypeople, we understood that as a house with two full floors. However, the architect from the building company implied a pyramid roof by "town villa." The change from the original gable roof to this non-convertible pyramid roof was never communicated to us, and we realized this far too late. Sure, you could say we should have noticed, but at some point, we just wanted to finish the project. The two-year construction period with two small children was really exhausting.
For the second build, we want to do everything right or make as few mistakes as possible, so we are allowing ourselves a much longer time for advance planning. We certainly will not build with the same homebuilding company again.
BUT: Is this the typical experience with standard (prefabricated) homebuilders? If you want something special like panoramic window walls, is it better to go to an architect? They are usually paid hourly. I worry that an architect might overall be the more expensive option. If we do go with a homebuilder, should we choose one that specializes in our style? For example, Huf-Haus comes to mind, but they are also very expensive.
Maybe someone here has had similar experiences with poor communication and advice, especially during the corona period?
Is there another solution besides a homebuilding company or an architect that we haven’t thought of? We just want to be involved in every decision and not be treated like we were the first time.
If what you want is above the average in size and features, does it make more sense economically to hire an architect than to modify a catalog house so much that it only ends up being more expensive?
Thanks for reading. I know this post is long.
In 2020, we built a new single-family home. However, for various reasons, we are not completely satisfied and are considering building again. We want to take our time with this (time frame 5-10 years) to be really sure about what exactly we want to change. In the meantime, we can also save more equity and observe everyday life with the children. From our experience, daily life with 3-4 children requires a lot of flexibility in the house because the needs of all family members seem to change quickly. That is why we have set quite a long time frame.
When we started planning the house in 2019, we didn’t always make the right decisions in hindsight. With the first and later the second child, and then the lockdown, we could not view or visit everything that was installed beforehand. Also, contact with the architect from the homebuilding company was quite limited. We often simply lacked proper advice.
My question to you is: How can we avoid making the same mistakes again in the next build? We always had to make decisions very quickly and often had no solid basis to decide. We would have liked to have quick access to prices and services; this just wasn’t available. For example, if we planned an additional window or increased the living area, we received a new total price and could only guess how much the extra cost was.
We found that the homebuilding company only builds in the way they usually do, meaning when we asked for something unusual, they said it wasn’t possible. For example, we wanted a large panoramic glass window wall that could slide open barrier-free. They said this wasn’t possible for structural reasons in our house. It seemed likely that our builder simply did not have this kind of feature in their program, or the profit margin on such a request was too low for them.
What frustrates me most is the roof. It is not usable as living space. It is a low pyramid roof made of nail plate trusses. There is not enough standing height for living space, and the structure is not suitable for conversion. We never discussed the roof with the architect at the time. The catalog house our free planning was based on originally had a gable roof—exactly what we would wish for today. The architect kept talking about a "town villa" we would be building, and we eventually adopted that term. As laypeople, we understood that as a house with two full floors. However, the architect from the building company implied a pyramid roof by "town villa." The change from the original gable roof to this non-convertible pyramid roof was never communicated to us, and we realized this far too late. Sure, you could say we should have noticed, but at some point, we just wanted to finish the project. The two-year construction period with two small children was really exhausting.
For the second build, we want to do everything right or make as few mistakes as possible, so we are allowing ourselves a much longer time for advance planning. We certainly will not build with the same homebuilding company again.
BUT: Is this the typical experience with standard (prefabricated) homebuilders? If you want something special like panoramic window walls, is it better to go to an architect? They are usually paid hourly. I worry that an architect might overall be the more expensive option. If we do go with a homebuilder, should we choose one that specializes in our style? For example, Huf-Haus comes to mind, but they are also very expensive.
Maybe someone here has had similar experiences with poor communication and advice, especially during the corona period?
Is there another solution besides a homebuilding company or an architect that we haven’t thought of? We just want to be involved in every decision and not be treated like we were the first time.
If what you want is above the average in size and features, does it make more sense economically to hire an architect than to modify a catalog house so much that it only ends up being more expensive?
Thanks for reading. I know this post is long.
R
RotesDach15 Feb 2024 13:16Thank goodness we still have a bit of time to think it over – because I don’t think the decision will be that easy. Our children are still so young that they haven’t yet come up with the idea of needing their own separate rooms.
RotesDach schrieb:
For comparison, large existing houses over 200 sqm (2,150 sq ft) in this region cost around 700k. That usually includes a large plot of land as well. In our case, I see building a new house as unfeasible because it would be significantly more expensive. I have already said everything about that. A four-year-old house on the market is practically a "day-old registration."
RotesDach schrieb:
For example, if the windows in the existing building need to be replaced anyway, I would have fewer reservations about swapping them for a large panoramic window front. I wouldn’t do that in our four-year-old house. You couldn’t do that with the existing house either, and you really should reconsider your priorities. Right now, you are like Ilsebill Fischer living in a house that, as a direct result of poor management of your planner, has been thoroughly set up for disappointing results. On behalf of everyone who warned in time, thank you for your discouraging example.
RotesDach schrieb:
Fortunately, we still have some time to think—because I don’t think the decision will be easy. Our children are still so young that they haven’t yet thought about needing their own rooms. Good that you realize this yourself: four children will not develop as four only children.
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WilderSueden15 Feb 2024 17:42RotesDach schrieb:
@ WilderSueden: For example, if the windows in an existing building need to be replaced anyway, I would be less hesitant to exchange them for a large panoramic window wall. I wouldn’t do that in our 4-year-old house. But keep in mind, it is much cheaper to do this in a new build and to design the structural support accordingly from the start than to install a 5-meter (16 feet) window in an older building.
RotesDach schrieb:
It feels like older properties often have large living areas with many rooms. Probably because building is much more expensive today than it used to be. That might be a solution for us with our many rooms. That’s misleading. Most older buildings are not larger than today’s. Of course, there are exceptions like a lawyer/doctor/... who built a 230 sqm (2,475 sq ft) house in the 1970s, but I would strongly doubt that the living space in such buildings is used efficiently. And such houses are by no means cheap to renovate.
The older houses I know that have around this number of rooms (8 bedrooms/guest rooms/studies) are typically either two-family homes or were used as multi-generational houses (with more or less well-separated living units). In other words, places where, for a long time, grandma still lived in the house or something similar. Growing up in a rural area, I’m somewhat familiar with this (there are also some older farmhouses where, for example, the barn or similar was later converted into living space). However, I wouldn’t say this is the norm, and many houses might be even older than what the original poster imagines. I also wouldn’t really call these classic single-family homes anymore.
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RotesDach16 Feb 2024 15:14Someone wrote on my post four years ago that our living area was too small – it is 60 sqm (645 sq ft), after all. More precisely, that there was not enough space within this living area. At the same time, I’ve often read that our floor plan wastes too much space and that the whole layout could fit into a much smaller area. Our living area is rectangular – not L-shaped or anything like that. Would that maybe have been a better choice? Can you get more out of the square meters that way, or what is meant by a different layout? I do notice that the living area feels tight. We also have our large dining table right in the middle: it measures 1.20 x 3.00 m (4 x 10 ft). We use it with guests, so I’m glad we chose such a large table. There are often visiting children or grandparents/other adult guests. In other words: it gets fully used. Does this mean we should make the living area bigger, or how can it be planned better?
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hausbau_phobos16 Feb 2024 15:3060m2 (645 sq ft) seems huge to me. We are currently planning for our large(!) house with about 40m2 (430 sq ft) excluding the kitchen, so dining and living room. That’s enough space for evenings with more than 10 people.
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