ᐅ Planning a single-family house (basement + ground floor + upper floor) on a 480 m² plot
Created on: 19 Jan 2022 17:37
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Elias_dee
Hello! In another thread, I was advised to present my project here. First of all, we are still at the very beginning of the planning process, have luckily secured a plot of land, and now need to study everything carefully. Tips, criticism, suggestions, etc., are always welcome.
Here are "our" key data:
- We are 2 adults, no children, and none planned for the time being
- Electricity consumption: about 3,000 - 3,500 kWh
- Hot water consumption: I don’t have exact data right now, but it’s rather high because we shower with warm water every day
- Fairly handy, so we would like to do at least the painting ourselves (interior + exterior), lay floor coverings (except tiles), and do the garden completely ourselves (we already have experience in all these areas)
Here are the key data for the plot:
- Plot size 480 m² (5,167 ft²)
- New development area
- 2 parking spaces required
- 2 full floors mandatory according to the development plan / zoning plan (building permit / planning permission)
- Ridge direction East-West, renewable energy preferred according to the development plan, photovoltaic as an independent roofing layer is possible
And here is what we want for the house:
- Ground floor with living room, kitchen, guest room, and bathroom with shower
- Upper floor with bedroom, walk-in closet, bathroom with shower, office 1, office 2
- Basement with technical room, utility room, possibly sauna and fitness area, but this might shift to just fitness + sauna in the garden
- Central long straight staircase as a design element
- About 80 m² (860 ft²) living space per floor
- Garage: We want an attached (prefabricated?) garage with direct access to the house plus a carport on the opposite side of the house (unfortunately required by the development/zoning plan)
According to the current plan (but I am still very uncertain here, so criticism is always welcome):
- Build according to KfW55 standard, even if there is no subsidy, or at least close to it—KfW40 does not seem worthwhile to me
- Natural gas connection is already laid to the plot, so my current preference is natural gas heating combined with solar thermal energy (for hot water and heating)
- Photovoltaics are currently not planned, as I don’t see the advantage given the low feed-in tariff
- A ventilation system, although I’m not sure yet if it should be central or decentralized
I can’t think of anything else at the moment—comments on anything are always welcome.
Thanks and best regards!
Elias_dee
Here are "our" key data:
- We are 2 adults, no children, and none planned for the time being
- Electricity consumption: about 3,000 - 3,500 kWh
- Hot water consumption: I don’t have exact data right now, but it’s rather high because we shower with warm water every day
- Fairly handy, so we would like to do at least the painting ourselves (interior + exterior), lay floor coverings (except tiles), and do the garden completely ourselves (we already have experience in all these areas)
Here are the key data for the plot:
- Plot size 480 m² (5,167 ft²)
- New development area
- 2 parking spaces required
- 2 full floors mandatory according to the development plan / zoning plan (building permit / planning permission)
- Ridge direction East-West, renewable energy preferred according to the development plan, photovoltaic as an independent roofing layer is possible
And here is what we want for the house:
- Ground floor with living room, kitchen, guest room, and bathroom with shower
- Upper floor with bedroom, walk-in closet, bathroom with shower, office 1, office 2
- Basement with technical room, utility room, possibly sauna and fitness area, but this might shift to just fitness + sauna in the garden
- Central long straight staircase as a design element
- About 80 m² (860 ft²) living space per floor
- Garage: We want an attached (prefabricated?) garage with direct access to the house plus a carport on the opposite side of the house (unfortunately required by the development/zoning plan)
According to the current plan (but I am still very uncertain here, so criticism is always welcome):
- Build according to KfW55 standard, even if there is no subsidy, or at least close to it—KfW40 does not seem worthwhile to me
- Natural gas connection is already laid to the plot, so my current preference is natural gas heating combined with solar thermal energy (for hot water and heating)
- Photovoltaics are currently not planned, as I don’t see the advantage given the low feed-in tariff
- A ventilation system, although I’m not sure yet if it should be central or decentralized
I can’t think of anything else at the moment—comments on anything are always welcome.
Thanks and best regards!
Elias_dee
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Elias_dee21 Jan 2022 13:41First of all, thanks to most of you who provided really important advice and good tips! I was able to take away a lot from here and will try to implement this in the next planning stage. I also liked all the relevant posts.
I don’t understand why some people (like my previous poster) feel the need to make silly jokes or comments. Isn’t your time too valuable for that? If you can’t or don’t want to help, just don’t. I simply don’t have knowledge about everything; this is my first time building a house. Unfortunately, I have exactly $0 inheritance to contribute, so I might not be able to afford everything — which means the house design will need to be adjusted accordingly (and that’s exactly why it’s so useful that helpful comments are posted here).
By the way, “Mr. + Mrs. Rich” is totally off the mark — we got a plot of land at a good price, but everything we build on it will have to be earned through hard work. We will be able to bring in just under 100,000 euros (about $110,000) in equity, that’s it. And we both worked hard for that; we didn’t get anything from anywhere else. We both come from very modest backgrounds and have only been lucky to have well-paid jobs; otherwise, we wouldn’t even be able to afford a house for 500,000 euros (about $550,000).
As I mentioned earlier, we have an architect who is a good friend and is designing the house for us. Before going to her, I wanted to hear some ideas. Maybe it’s actually good that everything gets criticized and questioned here, so the rough draft I give her will be even closer to reality 😉
I don’t understand why some people (like my previous poster) feel the need to make silly jokes or comments. Isn’t your time too valuable for that? If you can’t or don’t want to help, just don’t. I simply don’t have knowledge about everything; this is my first time building a house. Unfortunately, I have exactly $0 inheritance to contribute, so I might not be able to afford everything — which means the house design will need to be adjusted accordingly (and that’s exactly why it’s so useful that helpful comments are posted here).
By the way, “Mr. + Mrs. Rich” is totally off the mark — we got a plot of land at a good price, but everything we build on it will have to be earned through hard work. We will be able to bring in just under 100,000 euros (about $110,000) in equity, that’s it. And we both worked hard for that; we didn’t get anything from anywhere else. We both come from very modest backgrounds and have only been lucky to have well-paid jobs; otherwise, we wouldn’t even be able to afford a house for 500,000 euros (about $550,000).
As I mentioned earlier, we have an architect who is a good friend and is designing the house for us. Before going to her, I wanted to hear some ideas. Maybe it’s actually good that everything gets criticized and questioned here, so the rough draft I give her will be even closer to reality 😉
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Bauherrin-tn21 Jan 2022 19:50“That’s not possible,” “The house is too small/big,” “You’ll never have enough money.” We heard this a lot, especially from people who received gifted land and/or generous financial gifts from their parents. Everything seems impossible until someone does it. Find experts and study the subject thoroughly. Also consider prefabricated house construction; many companies also build architect-designed houses (for example, Luxhaus in Bavaria). The more you understand the topic, the better it will be for your house and your budget. I think 150,000 euros for a plot in Bavaria is a stroke of luck; you don’t find that anymore in the Nuremberg area. With that, a house under 900,000 euros should be possible. That’s already a substantial amount.
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blubbernase21 Jan 2022 19:54Oh, it seems like some kind of royalty got their feelings hurt... How am I ever supposed to reach 200 posts when the threads I participate in are always being heavily moderated?
What we did, @Elias_dee, was create lists and prioritize things, such as: the kitchen facing the front, the staircase not near the front door, etc.
Some of it had to give way to "building realities," but not everything.
What we did, @Elias_dee, was create lists and prioritize things, such as: the kitchen facing the front, the staircase not near the front door, etc.
Some of it had to give way to "building realities," but not everything.
Elias_dee schrieb:
I already mentioned earlier that we have an architect who is very good friends with us and is designing our project. Before we go to her, I wanted to gather some ideas. It might even be good to have everything here critically reviewed and challenged, so the initial draft I deliver to her might be even closer to reality 😉 First off: Don’t get upset about some posts or contributors. I also tend to get excited and have high expectations because this forum really has a lot of expertise. But it’s still the internet, and for every expert, there is at least one troll. You’re basically not supposed to feed them, but I often let my cookies be stolen anyway. 😉
Regarding the initial draft – I don’t know how far along you are, but for a second building project I considered going to the architect with a purely textual concept. Our current home is a catalog house from a general contractor, which we modified in collaboration with their draftsmen. While I still think it’s not bad, for project two—if it ever happens—I want to see how an architect would interpret and put our wishes on paper. After all, that’s what they have trained for, and I’m concerned that if I start with a sketch, certain things might get fixed prematurely that aren’t really decided yet. We prefer to create a precise, textual list of requirements, prioritize them, and then see how much the architect can incorporate.
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Elias_dee22 Jan 2022 20:38Why on earth were both my post and several other constructive ones deleted, but the nonsense post by [B] driver55 was allowed to stay? 😡 😡 😡 What drunk chimpanzee was acting as moderator here?
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