Once again, no ones tell you that building your own house requires lots and lots of patience… more patience and nerves…
It requires alot of waiting as well. Maybe it is the german bureaucracy (but it should be, because u are spending alot of money on it) and i have no idea because i never build one before…and this is my first.
And weirdly, there are only on how nice the new house is etc etc… but let me talk about the BAD part first and our naive mistakes. It is also probably our fault because we didn’t do enough research and was dump into the building directly. Good and bad. Right into the cold waters. Anyway, we assumed that we do not need to do alot of organisation because the company where we bought the house from do provide a “project leader” that coordinates the sub contractors and approval of all the scope of deliveries by the sub. Everything from A HAND as the germans call it. We also try not to DIY so much as compared to our future neighbour because of garantee and also mainly because we have no friends who are doing construction or have any experiences…
House building requires alot of DIY no matter what. That includes signing up for everything. And you need to do it right because it will or might cost extra money later if it needs to be redone.
It is not just about the Bauwasser/ Baustrom (Water and electricity for construction) or even the dixi toilet. Before that, we need to already sign up for water, electricity, internet / telephone line (because its just a land and nothing else) then the canal work, where the “shit water”goes, where the fresh water comes, how the piping goes and at which degree/ angle to make sure that there is not flow back because you do not want the shit water to come back through your toilet bowl.
Then you need to do all the talk to all the person in charge. Coordinate, get them the documents they need. The 3 way traffic for a person who has no idea on house building… 🙁 Yup….
Oh, and do plan properly….when the building begins… no ground works will be done when the temperature is below -6C. Pipe will burst or freeze etc. So if your timing happens to be like us…. its another wait till spring….
OUR TIME LINE
APRIl 2020 – Bought Land
JUNE 2020 – start with architect planning and designing
AUG 2020 – submitted plans (bad timing because of summer breaks)
OCT 2020 – approval received plus changes that needed to be done
NOV 2020 – Bemusterung (Interior planning) at house company
DEC 2020 – Basement planning…
JAN 2021 – Grobabstreckung (Marking of the house size – for the ground worker to dig (Erdarbeit*)
Erdarbeit (Ground work/ Foundation ) – digging of the ground for the basement, removal of soil if there is extra (you need to pay for removal and thankfully we can give our soil to our neighbour) then they will prepare the ground for the cellar and also cover up when the cellar is done. Their service also includes… compacting the ground for the patio, drive way etc etc… all extra costs of course…
FEB 21……. waiting for Grüne Wiese Gespräch from the celler manufacturer to know when to start work….. after that its 4-8 week of production time. And 1 week before delivery the ground work will start. Soooo….. wait….