ᐅ Building an End-Terrace House as a Self-Managed Project with a General Contractor
Created on: 27 May 2019 10:48
G
goalkeeper
Hello everyone,
some of you might have already followed one of my threads about us having to or being allowed to build our end-terrace house on our own responsibility – depending on how you look at it. This means that we are buying an end-terrace plot (215 sqm (2315 sq ft)) in a new development area in the Rhein-Neckar district and will be building on it ourselves – but in coordination with our two terrace neighbors.
The municipality, which sold the plots through a local resident model, ideally wanted applicants to apply as a complete housing group with several families and then build accordingly with a general contractor, construction manager, or architect. Of course, that didn’t really work out, so now there are only individual applicants and also homeowners.
After we were awarded the plot, the addresses of the other terrace neighbors were shared to discuss certain matters, such as roof style, whether or not to have a basement, etc. It was immediately clear that everyone preferred to do their own thing. However, we were still able to agree that the housing group will have a gable roof with a pitch of 35 to 40 degrees (within this 5-degree range).
As the end house, we will build without a basement, while the middle house and the other end house will have basements. This obviously presents a challenge as we would have to make a deep foundation or simply skip it, and the middle house would have to support us, as we will start construction first. The current agreement with the middle house is that we will build a deeper foundation at his expense, as supporting our house later on would be considerably more expensive for him.
We are currently close to signing with the construction manager, the notarization appointment for the plot is at the end of June, and we hope to start construction in the fall of this year. Meanwhile, several other freely planned housing groups are being built around us, which might get in the way with their cranes.
I will document the progress here from time to time – such a self-planned terraced house doesn’t come along very often.
some of you might have already followed one of my threads about us having to or being allowed to build our end-terrace house on our own responsibility – depending on how you look at it. This means that we are buying an end-terrace plot (215 sqm (2315 sq ft)) in a new development area in the Rhein-Neckar district and will be building on it ourselves – but in coordination with our two terrace neighbors.
The municipality, which sold the plots through a local resident model, ideally wanted applicants to apply as a complete housing group with several families and then build accordingly with a general contractor, construction manager, or architect. Of course, that didn’t really work out, so now there are only individual applicants and also homeowners.
After we were awarded the plot, the addresses of the other terrace neighbors were shared to discuss certain matters, such as roof style, whether or not to have a basement, etc. It was immediately clear that everyone preferred to do their own thing. However, we were still able to agree that the housing group will have a gable roof with a pitch of 35 to 40 degrees (within this 5-degree range).
As the end house, we will build without a basement, while the middle house and the other end house will have basements. This obviously presents a challenge as we would have to make a deep foundation or simply skip it, and the middle house would have to support us, as we will start construction first. The current agreement with the middle house is that we will build a deeper foundation at his expense, as supporting our house later on would be considerably more expensive for him.
We are currently close to signing with the construction manager, the notarization appointment for the plot is at the end of June, and we hope to start construction in the fall of this year. Meanwhile, several other freely planned housing groups are being built around us, which might get in the way with their cranes.
I will document the progress here from time to time – such a self-planned terraced house doesn’t come along very often.
And then the groundworker just went ahead and exposed your rainwater downpipe and dug up half of your terrace "because he needs the space to work"? Even though he had already received an email from you explicitly forbidding this without prior permission? Wow... I would probably be absolutely furious too.
Tina mit K14 Aug 2020 13:40What actually happens now after the temporary injunction? I'm not very familiar with this. So, first of all, there's a building stop, that's clear. What needs to happen for the neighbor to be allowed to continue working? And what if they go ahead and continue anyway? Then you could call the police because of the temporary injunction, right?
I would already start thinking about privacy screening. You definitely don’t want to see someone like that.
I would already start thinking about privacy screening. You definitely don’t want to see someone like that.
Pinkiponk schrieb:
Why aren’t work areas generally set up "at the front or back" of an undeveloped lot, but in your case on the left or right side, meaning in a location where there are already houses? Is there a practical reason for this? The term "work area" does not refer to a site accommodation (or what do you imagine it to be?), but to the trench around the foundation where the workers form the basement walls. Although there are techniques developed for large construction sites, which are almost exclusively suitable for those, that allow working with “zero boundary setback,” the main reason for my approach is practical: building a middle house last falls into the highest category of difficult, tedious work. A crane drive that can move by fractions of a degree is unaffordable for a small construction site.
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
11ant schrieb:
Building the middle house last can definitely be classified as a serious construction error.However, this is likely to happen more often. If so, how should this have been prevented? Especially when, for example, years pass between building the individual houses?P
Pinkiponk14 Aug 2020 15:24goalkeeper schrieb:
We sent the neighbors two emails prohibiting them from accessing our property or carrying out any interception work without our consent—most recently about three weeks before excavation—including the general contractor, architect, and civil engineer, as well as witnesses on the day of excavation.
That is why the preliminary injunction was fully granted, as everything can be proven without gaps. I have struggled for a long time with whether and how to write this, and I hope I am not making a mistake.
Given the aggressive behavior of your middle-house neighbor, including his wife and apparently the contracted companies, please take good care of yourself and your family and consider implementing security measures. To me, their behavior sounds like they could lose control. So far, they seem to be acting with an unusually high level of aggression, reinforcing each other’s belief that they are right. Their cognitive abilities also seem to be significantly underdeveloped.
Maybe I am imagining things (and as a woman perhaps I am overly fearful of aggressors, that could be it), but with such aggressive people, you never know when they may feel cornered and start lashing out wildly without any regard for the consequences.
tomtom79 schrieb:
This will definitely happen more often, so how should the supporting structure have been handled? Especially when there are years between building the individual houses? Fortunately, typical infill plots rarely measure as much as seven meters (23 feet), and the issue here was not the support itself, but rather that the middle house owner considered it unnecessary. Infill projects can generally be managed well under the motto "nothing is too difficult for the engineer." Nevertheless, I maintain my fundamental view that, first, uncoordinated semi-detached and terraced house construction inherently presents challenges, and second, having the “last one in the middle” requires a masochistic mindset. A wise mayor would be better off awarding each entire row to a single developer (who could also be a three-family partnership, for example).
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/