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.
schubert7921 Sep 2019 15:05I am really curious...
If the neighbor has to deal with it anyway when digging their basement, couldn’t the area simply be filled up, covered with gravel, and then founded with a concrete slab?
I don’t think that would be unreasonable in terms of cost either.
I’ve never dealt with situations like this before.
I don’t think that would be unreasonable in terms of cost either.
I’ve never dealt with situations like this before.
G
goalkeeper21 Sep 2019 21:19guckuck2 schrieb:
If the neighbor has to do shoring anyway when excavating their basement, couldn’t you just backfill, add a gravel layer, and then pour the slab foundation?
I don’t imagine that would be too expensive.
I’ve never dealt with such situations before. See my previous posts – the issue is the retaining wall on the side of the middle house neighbor. According to the soil engineer, it should be built using L-shaped concrete blocks, but the structural engineer rejected this, saying it wouldn’t be stable enough.
So it will now come down to using a strip footing foundation – although this hasn’t been officially confirmed by the project manager yet.
Overall, the whole situation is quite frustrating. Building terraced houses as self-build projects, with or without basements. Then there are the ground height differences. At best, everyone agrees to raise the ground level; otherwise, the expensive L-shaped retaining wall battle begins, and the entire development ends up looking very uneven.
G
goalkeeper21 Sep 2019 23:35guckuck2 schrieb:
Overall, the whole situation is pretty frustrating. Townhouses built by individual owners, with or without basements. Plus the terrain elevations. At best, everyone agrees on adding fill, otherwise the expensive L-shaped retaining wall battle begins, and the entire development ends up looking very uneven.If life were always that simple. Try getting 20 landowners to agree on the same thing—that’s going to be even more challenging.
goalkeeper schrieb:
If only life were always that simple. Just try to get 20 landowners to agree on something – that will be challenging enough.That should have been the responsibility of the city or county planners.
Now you have to deal with the consequences.
There are plenty of negative examples of neighborhoods with L-shaped retaining walls here. Absolutely dreadful.
Nobody chooses that willingly. On top of that, it’s expensive.
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