ᐅ Building a House Independently – Our Great Experience Report!
Created on: 4 Oct 2018 15:46
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SelbstbauS
Selbstbau4 Oct 2018 15:46Hello Forum,
I would like to give you a brief insight into our house construction, which I believe has become quite rare nowadays... We built the house ourselves!
Me: trained bricklayer (switched to a new profession at 22 due to health reasons)
Father: trained bricklayer (worked for the local building authority for the last 15 years)
Construction site: Baden-Württemberg, south of Ulm (rural area)
Start of construction: February 2017
Move-in: April 2018
Single-family house (hollow brick 42.5cm without insulation) 186 sqm (2002 sq ft), gable roof with dormer, double garage with basement, 8m x 8m (26 ft x 26 ft). Architect’s cost estimate: €480,000
Our own cost calculation: approx. €280,000
(of course, after some quick research on prices for various trades)
Labor input: homeowner 1600 hours, my wife 250 hours, father 1050 hours, friends about 400 hours.
(Productivity with friends was lower since we spent more time chatting than working 😀 Still, it was a really great time together!)
Six months after moving in, (hopefully) all invoices are settled. We paid about €273,000 for the house and the double garage with basement. Including kitchen, furniture, lamps, and all the little extras, we ended up around €350,000. The yard is finished at 180 sqm (1938 sq ft), terrace 50 sqm (538 sq ft) completed. I have already mowed the lawn four times (thanks to well water during the dry summer) 🙂 Garden landscaping will be tackled in spring 😀
It was a very, truly very stressful and exhausting year.
Would I do it again? A clear YES! Building is simply awesome 😀
PS: Is there interest in the detailed cost breakdown?
I would like to give you a brief insight into our house construction, which I believe has become quite rare nowadays... We built the house ourselves!
Me: trained bricklayer (switched to a new profession at 22 due to health reasons)
Father: trained bricklayer (worked for the local building authority for the last 15 years)
Construction site: Baden-Württemberg, south of Ulm (rural area)
Start of construction: February 2017
Move-in: April 2018
Single-family house (hollow brick 42.5cm without insulation) 186 sqm (2002 sq ft), gable roof with dormer, double garage with basement, 8m x 8m (26 ft x 26 ft). Architect’s cost estimate: €480,000
Our own cost calculation: approx. €280,000
(of course, after some quick research on prices for various trades)
Labor input: homeowner 1600 hours, my wife 250 hours, father 1050 hours, friends about 400 hours.
(Productivity with friends was lower since we spent more time chatting than working 😀 Still, it was a really great time together!)
Six months after moving in, (hopefully) all invoices are settled. We paid about €273,000 for the house and the double garage with basement. Including kitchen, furniture, lamps, and all the little extras, we ended up around €350,000. The yard is finished at 180 sqm (1938 sq ft), terrace 50 sqm (538 sq ft) completed. I have already mowed the lawn four times (thanks to well water during the dry summer) 🙂 Garden landscaping will be tackled in spring 😀
It was a very, truly very stressful and exhausting year.
Would I do it again? A clear YES! Building is simply awesome 😀
PS: Is there interest in the detailed cost breakdown?
Friends of ours have just completed a similar project. Although they did get some help with a few trade disciplines, at least 80% of the work was done by themselves.
The savings, just for the house itself, ended up being around €50,000–60,000. If you include the garage, landscaping, and so on, the amount is certainly much higher, but many people still do those parts themselves.
I find it interesting what the motivation for the project was. Was it to save money? To get more value for the invested capital? Or was the experience and the project itself the main focus? Building your own house today, as you mentioned above, is something hardly anyone can still claim – and that’s also a matter of pride.
You took about 15 months, during which you put in 1,600 hours yourself. If I calculate that, it’s around 25–30 hours per week. Managing that alongside a full-time job, family, and many other responsibilities is quite an achievement. Even if compromises were probably made in many areas during that time, sustaining that over such a long period is a real Herculean task.
I would definitely be interested in reading more about your project. A cost breakdown would also be very interesting. At the same time, I am sure that such a project is feasible for very few people, and therefore hardly comparable.
The savings, just for the house itself, ended up being around €50,000–60,000. If you include the garage, landscaping, and so on, the amount is certainly much higher, but many people still do those parts themselves.
I find it interesting what the motivation for the project was. Was it to save money? To get more value for the invested capital? Or was the experience and the project itself the main focus? Building your own house today, as you mentioned above, is something hardly anyone can still claim – and that’s also a matter of pride.
You took about 15 months, during which you put in 1,600 hours yourself. If I calculate that, it’s around 25–30 hours per week. Managing that alongside a full-time job, family, and many other responsibilities is quite an achievement. Even if compromises were probably made in many areas during that time, sustaining that over such a long period is a real Herculean task.
I would definitely be interested in reading more about your project. A cost breakdown would also be very interesting. At the same time, I am sure that such a project is feasible for very few people, and therefore hardly comparable.
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Stefan8904 Oct 2018 17:50It's great to see projects like this succeed. I would appreciate more details. Which trades were subcontracted?
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Selbstbau4 Oct 2018 17:53Please provide the text you would like me to translate.
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Selbstbau4 Oct 2018 18:15Thank you for your feedback.
We also had help with various trades. For example:
- I can’t handle the building permit/planning permission, drawings, or structural engineering, but my former company can. So I went there and talked to my former boss, who agreed to put his company stamp on the documents, even though he doesn’t earn anything from me/us. I did this with the architect in the evening after his working hours. All the plans, structural engineering, building permit, etc. cost €1300 (about $1400) — how great is that? 😀 (official invoice)
- Electrical work: I can’t connect or wire a distribution board, but a very good friend who is an electrician did it for free 😉
- Roof structure: I can’t build the roof frame either, but I can take time off work and help the carpenters raise it (this only works because the carpentry company is local and we know each other). The roofing is done by an electrician again.
Primarily, of course, it was about saving money—I am Swabian (a true Swabian) 😀
We also had help with various trades. For example:
- I can’t handle the building permit/planning permission, drawings, or structural engineering, but my former company can. So I went there and talked to my former boss, who agreed to put his company stamp on the documents, even though he doesn’t earn anything from me/us. I did this with the architect in the evening after his working hours. All the plans, structural engineering, building permit, etc. cost €1300 (about $1400) — how great is that? 😀 (official invoice)
- Electrical work: I can’t connect or wire a distribution board, but a very good friend who is an electrician did it for free 😉
- Roof structure: I can’t build the roof frame either, but I can take time off work and help the carpenters raise it (this only works because the carpentry company is local and we know each other). The roofing is done by an electrician again.
Lobster schrieb:
I find it interesting what the intention behind the project was. Was it about saving money? Getting more out of the invested capital, or was the experience and the project itself the main focus?
Primarily, of course, it was about saving money—I am Swabian (a true Swabian) 😀
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