Boundary wall/terraced house/weatherproof, when not built simultaneously.

Hello everyone,

since searching on the internet unfortunately did not bring any new insights, as a construction novice I would like to find out what needs to be considered when building a terraced house if the neighbor wants to build only a year later.

We are concerned that our party wall with the neighbor, which of course is not designed to be weatherproof, will become damp over the winter and we might subsequently have to deal with mold infestation. Therefore, your experiences would be very desirable to know whether this is actually a problem and what additional costs we should expect to at least temporarily make the wall weatherproof.

Has anyone of you had a similar situation?

Best regards

An unplastered gable wall of course cannot be exposed to the weather/ driving rain. Temporary weather protection is most easily created with a vertical 40/60 battening and thus a ventilated, driving rain-tight and UV-resistant cladding. This can be a suitable foil/membrane (UV-stable, tear-resistant, able to withstand wind pressure and suction) or a weatherproof, freely weather-exposed panel material (plastic, wood, wood-based panel etc). The decisive factor is the duration for which this cladding is intended. The requirement for the quality of the execution depends solely on that. Any kind of simple construction tarp from the hardware store, which after a few weeks is torn to shreds by UV radiation, is to be discouraged.

Another point is the missing building insulation of the gable side. Unless you build monolithically and only the exterior plaster would actually be missing. It would also need to be clarified on which side and by which builder the partition board between the gable walls will be installed.

What does the architect say about this so far?

Thank you very much for a quick and informative response.

We do indeed want to build in a monolithic construction method, so insulation should not be an issue. We want to avoid the wall getting wet at all costs, and you confirm my thought that it cannot be solved with a cheap foil and will already involve some costs. We have an appointment today with a potentially suitable developer, but he might downplay the whole thing since he is certainly interested in simultaneously building several houses. Therefore, further opinions/experiences are naturally interesting for us.

Best regards

Do you want to buy from the developer or build yourself on your own land?

Hi,

we definitely want to have it "built", tend towards the architect, but also have an appointment with the developer.

May I ask naïvely out of curiosity how one comes to build a terraced house independently of a developer?

In my opinion, this is a building type that makes joint planning with the neighbors on the walls advisable. For semi-detached house plots, I have already heard (just twice recently here) about planning independently, but not yet for the "classic" terraced house.

We had similar questions here regarding semi-detached houses in the threads and as well as on the aspect "plastering a house wall when a garage is to be attached" in this thread: