Architect misjudges clinker facade area

I clarify: Changes that affect third parties or involve a scale that becomes prone to errors. Especially changes in the shell construction (moving walls, changing supply/disposal lines, etc.) tend to lead to follow-up problems.

Whether you place the kitchen island 10 cm further left or right, on the other hand, feels like small potatoes to me, as long as the electrician isn’t involved. We also only decided which bathtubs and sinks or sizes would go into the bathroom once the plastered shell was done and whether the spacing between them was sufficient. Only if you want to change the position of the tub in general again does it become error-prone.

But the general contractor doesn’t get more money for that anymore ... although he would for a 1m door we wanted then ...
I didn’t know I wanted a solid core door ... in the offer there would have been some normal doors, don’t want to know what surcharge the GC would have charged for that ...

But right, big changes to the shell construction naturally not ...

But whether it will be wood-aluminum windows, for example, that you just have to know upfront with the GC, otherwise he charges well for the upvaluation ... and unfortunately doesn’t even honestly tell you what the surcharge really would be! That’s how it was for us with the question of controlled residential ventilation yes or no ...
then we switched to individual contracts ... with flexibility but also the described stress ...

Always make it clear to your counterpart that you are a layperson

This cannot be said often enough.

Behind the misnomer of GU as "property developer" usually lies the fact that the layperson thinks if they say "general contractor," that sounds too amateurish, and the (unfortunately misused) technical term is the more socially acceptable expression.

Popular misunderstandings also include "exact" measurements, which unfortunately lack a clear reference: railing heights accurate to half a centimeter - but the "precision" of whether they are meant "gross or net" is neglected.

: great post! Thanks! I will definitely take this point with us. Write minutes yourself and have them countersigned.

There are general contractors (GU's) that are transparent. We had a priced calculation from the very beginning. We could always see what the window costs in plastic, aluminum, or wood. The GU's are partly less flexible because many things are ordered in advance. The tight schedule does not allow the client to say they want it differently now that the house is standing. Additional requests on the construction site, e.g. electricity or stairs, were not charged to us by the GU but directly by the craftsmen.

There are problems everywhere, and there are individual contracts that run smoothly; there are GU's where everything goes wrong.

Protocols are important. Asking questions: no question is too stupid. Gut feeling – the expert said to call as soon as you feel something is not right.

Last but not least, inform yourself, take care. Recently an article appeared in Spiegel stating that many clients take more care about the kitchen than about the house.

You really shouldn’t do something like that. Once construction starts, the planning should be completed.
Sometimes it works out well, but mostly it causes problems that you don’t even think about at the moment.

Who says that? That’s exactly how all my tradespeople build when they build for themselves. The window opening is enlarged before the first row of bricks of the parapet. Also, the electrical installation was finalized with me 1 hour before the slots were made. Of course it helps to plan everything beforehand, which is why the on-site meeting only lasted 30 minutes. But it’s not a must at all.

But actually, you shouldn’t do something like that. Planning should be completed at the start of construction.
Sometimes it works out fine, but mostly it causes problems that you don’t even think about at that moment.

Well, you probably can’t build like that with a general contractor, but it works without problems with separate trade contracts.

With us, all trades responded to changes without problems because I was on the construction site daily and finalized the planning with each trade only at the site at the start or shortly before the start of their work.

Of course, this is not for people who have no desire or time for onsite work.

This was how building was always done before turnkey construction; for the craftsmen I have met, this is the most normal thing.

Often the craftsman also suggested different options based on the circumstances.

And despite the cold winter, we moved into the finished house 9 months after groundbreaking – 180m2 plus a living basement; only the exterior facilities and the exterior plaster were not finished at that time.