ᐅ House Photos Discussion Corner – Share Your Home Pictures!

Holzhäuschen schrieb:

Sepp’s room

I really like that someone has finally chosen a cozy house with sloped ceilings again.
Thank you for sharing this with us.

Snowy36 schrieb:

So, the whole thing mainly depends on the slope of the plot … ours drops about 2 meters over 30 meters, the path to the front door alone is 15 m (50 feet), and so on …. That’s what makes it expensive.

I don’t see anything here that necessarily requires an expensive landscaping contractor. We have a similar slope, and it can be terraced in several steps with planted embankments. It doesn’t require much equipment. Alternatively, you could go for a more upscale look with natural stone blocks and build several small walls. Up to about hip height, that’s doable as a DIY project.

Also, plate compactors can be found used at reasonable prices. Mine cost €250 and, once I’m finished (the book recommendation from @Holzhäuschen is guilty of my garden plans becoming more elaborate 😉 ), I can resell it for about the same price. Comparable machines at home improvement stores rent for €90 per week plus a rubber mat, so that’s also fine if you do it all at once. The only really heavy machinery we’ll need is for earthworks, for which a mini excavator can be rented for a few days. With some searching, you can get one from around €90 gross per day.

Sure, a 15 m (50 feet) path requires materials, but you’d need that even without a landscaper. The material cost for a 5 m (16 feet) path isn’t that much more if you don’t go overboard on expensive materials. That’s often the issue I see in this forum. Large terraces are built with 1.2 x 1.2 m (4 x 4 feet) slabs made from costly materials, which of course requires a specialist. Then, 2 m (6 ½ feet) retaining walls are planned right up against the house, or the terrain is forced into shape with L-shaped retaining walls (which can only be moved with a machine due to their weight). Naturally, that ends up costing a lot.

So for us, the entire boundary with the eastern neighbor—from the garage to the end of the property—had to be lined with L-shaped retaining walls because we filled up to street level and the neighbor did not. We wanted to be able to enter the house on the same level, but oh well… everyone has their own way.

Those walls were worth every cent because water often runs down from the field above, and I definitely didn’t want that inside the house. I’m now a slab-on-grade above the street level and very glad about it.

Snowy36 schrieb:

I’m now at the shell stage across the street and very happy about it.

Does that mean you’re draining onto the street? Don’t you get into trouble for that?

Tolentino schrieb:

Does that mean you are draining onto the street? Don’t you get into trouble with that?

Well, when it really rains here, the water runs off like a torrent past my house. I don’t want that on my property... x0 cm (x0 inches) finished floor level above street level was allowed (I’d have to look up the exact figure).
Unfortunately, the neighbors down the street were already flooded...

OK, then it is apparently due to the circumstances. We are absolutely not allowed to drain onto public road land. This was emphasized once again. However, we do not have a sloped site. Fortunately, the street in front of our property slopes away from us, so I’m not too concerned about flooding on our land.