Hello everyone,
I’m new here and hope you can help me. My husband and I have recently started thinking about building our own home. We are already doing a lot of research and are currently looking for a plot of land.
Besides searching for land, we are also exploring different types of houses and construction methods, but we simply can’t decide whether to go for a traditional masonry house or a prefabricated house.
We are familiar with the pros and cons by now. However, the time factor no longer seems to be an advantage for prefabricated houses, since the start of construction can apparently be delayed.
For me, the only advantages of a masonry house are thermal insulation, impact sound insulation, and the property’s value development. But I’m wondering whether these really represent such significant disadvantages for a prefabricated house.
What are your experiences? For those of you who, for example, have a prefabricated house: Would you choose a modular house again or would you prefer a masonry house, and vice versa?
Thanks and good luck, Maracuja
I’m new here and hope you can help me. My husband and I have recently started thinking about building our own home. We are already doing a lot of research and are currently looking for a plot of land.
Besides searching for land, we are also exploring different types of houses and construction methods, but we simply can’t decide whether to go for a traditional masonry house or a prefabricated house.
We are familiar with the pros and cons by now. However, the time factor no longer seems to be an advantage for prefabricated houses, since the start of construction can apparently be delayed.
For me, the only advantages of a masonry house are thermal insulation, impact sound insulation, and the property’s value development. But I’m wondering whether these really represent such significant disadvantages for a prefabricated house.
What are your experiences? For those of you who, for example, have a prefabricated house: Would you choose a modular house again or would you prefer a masonry house, and vice versa?
Thanks and good luck, Maracuja
What do you mean by prefab house?
Wood frame? There is a wide range of quality.
We wanted a traditional masonry build. But a passive house.
The solid, masonry builders we spoke to all declined.
Wood frame constructions handle this much more easily, and many have KfW 55 or KfW 40 as their standard. They also don’t decline passive house projects.
In the end, we settled on solid wood construction from a small local company.
Warm in winter, cool in summer – others can do that too.
Flexibility or movement in wood frame houses is a bit of an issue. There are model homes where you feel seasick walking up the stairs, and when kids jump upstairs, the dishes shake in the kitchen below. There are also ones where you can jump upstairs as an adult and nothing wobbles downstairs.
If the wall structure doesn’t matter to you, then choose your building partner based on other criteria.
Regarding durability: My parents and my aunt both built a house the same year. My parents chose masonry, my aunt a prefab house. After about 40 years, both houses show roughly the same need for renovation.
Wood frame? There is a wide range of quality.
We wanted a traditional masonry build. But a passive house.
The solid, masonry builders we spoke to all declined.
Wood frame constructions handle this much more easily, and many have KfW 55 or KfW 40 as their standard. They also don’t decline passive house projects.
In the end, we settled on solid wood construction from a small local company.
Warm in winter, cool in summer – others can do that too.
Flexibility or movement in wood frame houses is a bit of an issue. There are model homes where you feel seasick walking up the stairs, and when kids jump upstairs, the dishes shake in the kitchen below. There are also ones where you can jump upstairs as an adult and nothing wobbles downstairs.
If the wall structure doesn’t matter to you, then choose your building partner based on other criteria.
Regarding durability: My parents and my aunt both built a house the same year. My parents chose masonry, my aunt a prefab house. After about 40 years, both houses show roughly the same need for renovation.
H
hampshire8 May 2019 14:13KFW 40 means that only 40% of the primary energy demand is required compared to a reference house defined by the Energy Saving Ordinance in its current version. This says nothing about the thermal storage capacity of materials.
The thermal storage capacity (Q), which is relevant for construction, depends on the specific heat capacity (c), the mass (p), and the wall thickness (d). The formula is: Q = c * d * p. So it depends on how the material is used.
The specific heat capacity of spruce wood is about 2.7 times higher than that of sand-lime brick. The specific weight of spruce wood is approximately 2.5 times lower than that of sand-lime brick.
With the same wall thickness, the materials do not differ much. What makes the difference are air inclusions and insulation.
The thermal storage capacity (Q), which is relevant for construction, depends on the specific heat capacity (c), the mass (p), and the wall thickness (d). The formula is: Q = c * d * p. So it depends on how the material is used.
The specific heat capacity of spruce wood is about 2.7 times higher than that of sand-lime brick. The specific weight of spruce wood is approximately 2.5 times lower than that of sand-lime brick.
With the same wall thickness, the materials do not differ much. What makes the difference are air inclusions and insulation.
I am happy to admit that a wooden structure can be just as comfortable to live in as one made of stone and just as durable. However, we never seriously considered wood.
Our decision was set. A monolithic build or, if not too expensive, brick-clad. No external insulation systems (ETICS/EIFS) because we didn’t want a wall that felt hollow or artificial, but one that simply had a tactile solidity. It was about the feeling of robustness.
Above all, it was important to my wife to build with a local company. No sample homes, no overpriced extras, no paperwork for lawyers, no tricks or hidden pitfalls... it had to be a business around the corner, personally managed by the owner.
Such an option doesn’t exist here for wooden construction. So, the question never really came up. We didn’t care about subsidies like those from KfW, as we weren’t interested in them anyway.
As for indoor climate, we can’t really imagine what that means. Good air equals sleeping with the window open, in winter it has to be warm, in summer cool—that’s fine. What exactly is indoor climate? Some esoteric concept? Tested with dowsing rods?
We have always lived in stone houses and never felt anything was wrong with them. So, it simply became a stone house. Karsten
Our decision was set. A monolithic build or, if not too expensive, brick-clad. No external insulation systems (ETICS/EIFS) because we didn’t want a wall that felt hollow or artificial, but one that simply had a tactile solidity. It was about the feeling of robustness.
Above all, it was important to my wife to build with a local company. No sample homes, no overpriced extras, no paperwork for lawyers, no tricks or hidden pitfalls... it had to be a business around the corner, personally managed by the owner.
Such an option doesn’t exist here for wooden construction. So, the question never really came up. We didn’t care about subsidies like those from KfW, as we weren’t interested in them anyway.
As for indoor climate, we can’t really imagine what that means. Good air equals sleeping with the window open, in winter it has to be warm, in summer cool—that’s fine. What exactly is indoor climate? Some esoteric concept? Tested with dowsing rods?
We have always lived in stone houses and never felt anything was wrong with them. So, it simply became a stone house. Karsten
I am continually amazed at how much fuss is made by people whose understanding of physics is based on informal, unscientific knowledge when it comes to wall constructions. The fact is: none of the wall materials used today by builders or home manufacturers come close to being either a miracle solution or a disaster. The importance of the building envelope is often overestimated, while all the pipes, cables, and HVAC components that penetrate walls and ceilings tend to be overlooked. I also have my preferences, and not all of them are objectively justified, but I wouldn’t bother to undervalue other wall assemblies. The obsession with comparison tests among today’s informed consumers sometimes borders on the comical. Homeowners who trust their builder to know what they are doing are by no means worse off.
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T
Traumfaenger8 May 2019 23:4011ant schrieb:
I’m always amazed at how much fuss people make about wall assemblies, especially those whose understanding of physics is based on casual, informal knowledge. The fact is: none of the wall building materials used today by contractors or home builders comes close to being either a savior or a villain. Thank you! You speak my mind. There are a few ongoing debates in this forum, and the topic of timber frame versus solid (massive) construction seems never to die out. Timber frame is always the flimsy shack, and solid construction is always the fortress (even though exterior insulation systems on those unfortunately can’t even hold a lamp, but never mind). Unfortunately, the world isn’t black and white, but on this topic, some want to prove beyond doubt that they made exactly the right choice and that all others would have been much worse. Maybe it’s because this decision is irreversible, and you can’t later switch from one construction type to the other through remodeling—so it’s a fundamental choice to defend passionately. The longer I read in this forum, the less motivated I am to post. But I liked your contribution!
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