Best wall construction in the prefab house sector

Hello everyone,

we are currently looking for a prefabricated house provider with whom we want to build our shell house and are a bit stuck, so we have a question for you in the forum.

Which provider is the highest quality or has the best wall construction?
We do have offers, but they are all within the same range, so we wanted to focus on quality and ecology.
In the running are

- Rubner
- Sonnleitner
- Ziegler
- Kurz
- Keitel-Haus

It should also be mentioned that we are building a semi-detached house with a granny flat with a total of 250 sqm over 2 floors.
We place great importance on a natural wall construction and ecological materials.

Does anyone have detailed knowledge of the companies or any experience?
Thanks for your support!

Best regards

Which provider is the highest quality or has the best wall construction?
We do have offers on hand, but they are all within the same range, so we wanted to go in the direction of quality and ecology.
In the running are
- Rubner - Sonnleitner - Ziegler - Kurz - Keitel-Haus

I don’t know Ziegler and Kurz, and I have rarely dealt with Rubner and Sonnleitner. There is no best wall construction, not even with a clear focus on what your highest priorities are. Generally, when thinking about the "eco" approach, to put it kindly, I would not immediately think of prefab house manufacturers. Why are you specifically (only) looking there?

It should also be said that we are building a semi-detached house with a granny flat totaling 250 sqm over 2 floors.
We place extremely high value on a natural wall construction and ecological materials.

You should explain the project in more detail. A semi-detached house of this size is atypical. Are your semi-detached partners thinking the same way? – A duplex should always be planned as a whole, even if you want to build both halves using different construction methods. "Am I my brother’s keeper" is the worst possible attitude when planning a duplex. Therefore, it is strongly recommended to have the earliest possible dialogue with the "other twin"!
On what basis were the mentioned offers actually created?

Thank you very much for the feedback and response!

There is no best wall construction, not even with a clear focus on what your highest priorities are. Generally, when thinking of the "eco" approach, I would frankly not think of prefab house builders first. Why are you specifically (only) looking there?

Interesting approach, with prefab houses I noticed for example everything from foil/Styrofoam in the walls up to solid wood, whereby the latter is more ecological for me. Hence the tendency towards wood and for example cork/wood fiber as insulation material, which in my opinion is more ecological than brick and mortar. Furthermore, the indoor climate was important to us and I lived for 25 years in a brick house and yes, although it was older, after just 10 minutes in a wooden house I was more convinced here.

You should explain the project in more detail. A semi-detached house of this size is atypical. Are your semi-detached house partners the same? - a semi-detached house should always be planned as a whole, even if you want to build both halves in different construction methods. "Am I my brother’s keeper" is the worst attitude you can have when planning a semi-detached house. Therefore, it is highly recommended to engage in dialogue with the "other twin" as early as possible!

We are in close contact with the neighbor here and try to align everything and design it together so that we are on the same page. For example, we are doing the excavation/cellar together.

Why is this atypical?

On what basis were the mentioned offers actually created?

What exactly do you mean? We went to an architect, had the plan we imagined drawn + the fittings and then gave these to the prefab house companies so that we get comparable offers.

Best regards

Go to a carpenter who installs LignoTrend solid wood. Very convincing structure - the additional cost for solid wood was a bit too high for us - but we stayed with the carpenter.

Go to a carpenter who installs LignoTrend solid wood. Very convincing construction - the surcharge for solid wood was a bit too high for us - but we still stayed with the carpenter.

what exactly is that - it's timber framing, right, or am I misunderstanding something?

Interesting approach, for me many things stood out in prefabricated houses, e.g. foil/styrofoam in the walls up to solid wood only, whereby the latter is more ecological for me. Hence the tendency towards wood and e.g. cork/wood fiber as insulation, which in my opinion is more ecological than brick and mortar.

Exactly. I also like to call "prefab" house walls "thermal insulation integral systems" because essentially the same panels that would be glued onto the wall in an ETICS system are simply placed between "beams." There are differences, but when I compare, I always feel like reading ingredient lists of ready-made sauces: the order of the mentioned ingredients and their percentage distribution vary more than one would find significant differences. But my standard statement (when comparing masonry stones), there are many stones but none of the wise (and none of the devil), applies equally to wood frame panels. So, one cannot say that prefab house walls are generally a whole league above masonry walls. Moreover, EVERY reshaping requires energy input – even if you just machine-cut and re-press. Stone does not have to be brick, and planed stones are assembled with considerably less mortar intensity than the old DF/NF/2DF bricks.

We are in close contact with the neighbor here and try to align everything and design jointly, so that we are on the same page. For example, we are doing the excavation/basement together.

That is very commendable and smart. Best to plan together, or with the same planner, and also have them supervise construction.

Why is that atypical?

In particular the size category is very rare in this building type, and the granny flat is also rarer in semi-detached houses than in detached single-family houses. Conversely, one also rarely builds this way on a semi-detached house plot.

What exactly is meant by that?
We went to an architect, had the plan we imagined drawn up + fittings, and then gave these to the prefab house companies to get comparable offers here.

Usually we read here from people who simply emailed their "architect-can-do-3D" floor plan set, or even just asked for prices with the wish for "xy square meters captain’s gable house." You were thus with an independent architect up to the design planning and are now (strange order!) searching for the wall construction. But at least you have proceeded a bit more professionally than the average inquiry poster. The architect has also already prepared a construction service description, if I understand correctly – why don’t you also let him choose the general contractor?