ᐅ Planning a Building Extension (Foundation/Load-Bearing Capacity/Alternatives)
Created on: 26 Sep 2019 13:09
P
pmuente
Hello,
I’m Peter and new here.
At the moment, I’m dealing with my eight-family house.
The house was built in 1957. Actually, it consists of two adjacent four-family houses, each with two apartments side by side and two stacked above. All the apartments are about 57m² (600 sq ft) each.
The previous owners renovated a lot over the decades, but not the roof, and it is now beyond repair.
Since the stairwell leads up to the attic, the idea came up to add another floor with four more apartments (side by side).
The city building authority approved this. Unfortunately, there are no original plans, not even in the city archives. Because of this, the structural engineer instructed to expose the foundation of the load-bearing exterior walls and the central wall in one continuous section.
And here things stand now. All the foundations are only as wide as the load-bearing walls (30cm (12 inches)) and the structural integrity is, by today’s standards, insufficient even for the existing building.
To add the additional floor, all load-bearing walls and foundations would have to be strengthened.
However, for a building of this length, the foundation reinforcement alone would reportedly cost no less than €100,000.
I don’t want to put such a strain on the old house.
Currently, neither architect nor structural engineer can offer a solution.
One idea I had was to build the apartments almost independently, using steel columns and beams above the existing structure at a height of 5.5m (18 feet). Visually, I find steel beams running along the existing building appealing, and it would decouple the weight of the new apartments from the old structure. Everyone still looks at me skeptically, but I’m searching for solutions and both the architect and structural engineer seem somewhat conservative at the moment.
I hope to find national and many other suggestions in this forum.
Thank you very much.
Peter
I’m Peter and new here.
At the moment, I’m dealing with my eight-family house.
The house was built in 1957. Actually, it consists of two adjacent four-family houses, each with two apartments side by side and two stacked above. All the apartments are about 57m² (600 sq ft) each.
The previous owners renovated a lot over the decades, but not the roof, and it is now beyond repair.
Since the stairwell leads up to the attic, the idea came up to add another floor with four more apartments (side by side).
The city building authority approved this. Unfortunately, there are no original plans, not even in the city archives. Because of this, the structural engineer instructed to expose the foundation of the load-bearing exterior walls and the central wall in one continuous section.
And here things stand now. All the foundations are only as wide as the load-bearing walls (30cm (12 inches)) and the structural integrity is, by today’s standards, insufficient even for the existing building.
To add the additional floor, all load-bearing walls and foundations would have to be strengthened.
However, for a building of this length, the foundation reinforcement alone would reportedly cost no less than €100,000.
I don’t want to put such a strain on the old house.
Currently, neither architect nor structural engineer can offer a solution.
One idea I had was to build the apartments almost independently, using steel columns and beams above the existing structure at a height of 5.5m (18 feet). Visually, I find steel beams running along the existing building appealing, and it would decouple the weight of the new apartments from the old structure. Everyone still looks at me skeptically, but I’m searching for solutions and both the architect and structural engineer seem somewhat conservative at the moment.
I hope to find national and many other suggestions in this forum.
Thank you very much.
Peter
N
nordanney26 Sep 2019 18:13pmuente schrieb:
Now the question arises whether it is still profitable to add an additional floor when living space is limitedWhere are the houses located? Düsseldorf-Oberkassel, and the answer is yes; Tantow in Saxony, and the answer is no.Well, the floating solution is just wishful thinking. Technically it may be feasible, but financially it would likely be disastrous and probably not approved by the authorities.
@11ant mostly focuses on wordplay, and the actual content is sometimes less important, so you shouldn’t let that bother you. Although it sometimes tempts me to completely skip his posts, which is actually a shame. Often his ideas are valuable, and some of his phrasing can be quite amusing. In my opinion, a bit more targeted wording would benefit the forum.
A new roof is not unprofitable; the alternative is not generating any income at all. If water leaks inside, even the most resilient tenant will move out. It seems to be an inherited property anyway, so you have to invest a bit if you want to continue earning returns. In the Voreifel region, building an additional floor probably won’t pay off quickly, so it’s better to have the roof replaced well and affordably—you can write it off anyway.
@11ant mostly focuses on wordplay, and the actual content is sometimes less important, so you shouldn’t let that bother you. Although it sometimes tempts me to completely skip his posts, which is actually a shame. Often his ideas are valuable, and some of his phrasing can be quite amusing. In my opinion, a bit more targeted wording would benefit the forum.
A new roof is not unprofitable; the alternative is not generating any income at all. If water leaks inside, even the most resilient tenant will move out. It seems to be an inherited property anyway, so you have to invest a bit if you want to continue earning returns. In the Voreifel region, building an additional floor probably won’t pay off quickly, so it’s better to have the roof replaced well and affordably—you can write it off anyway.
apokolok schrieb:
In my opinion, the forum would benefit from more precise wording.Whatever the artist intends to convey with this ...https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
Nice idea, the elevated multi-family house … it reminds me of design studies on the topic of “experimental design” … Without wanting to go into the various problems that such a project would cause in the strict framework of German building and planning regulations, or even to consider the structural challenges in any detail, I ask a simple but crucial question: What construction budget is available for which building task? Many construction consultations end quickly as soon as this question is asked.
wpic schrieb:
Nice idea, the elevated multi-family house ... reminds me of project work on "experimental design" ... Without wanting to go into the many issues that such a project would cause within the strict framework of German building and planning law, or even to address the structural challenges only briefly, I pose a simple but crucial question: What construction budget is available for which building task? Many construction consultations come to a quick end once this question is asked.300,000 to 350,000
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