Building alongside job/child: How well does it work? (Your experiences)

Hello everyone,

I would like to see anyone who lives in a self-built home within 2-3 months. We built solidly and it took us 8 months.
Okay, friends of ours took a prefabricated house. For them, it also worked out within 3 months. It's just a question of what you want. For our friends, the "construction" was free of any stress. In the end, they really only put wallpaper on the walls and did the flooring themselves.

Many greetings
Nina
PS: our screed wonderfully needed 10 weeks to be ready for covering. :-(

Hello dear ones,

first of all, thank you very much for your replies. I think it’s great that so many of you took the time to respond in such detail. You seem to have quite different experiences after all.

For us, everything will now be postponed, but I still want to respond to your individual answers right away. Since the reply text has gotten quite long, I divided it into three parts (two answers per post). I hope this way it’s clear enough. In the future, I will try to respond to the individual posts more quickly, then my own reply won’t get so long.

Hello,

I have two children myself and am currently building, I have no idea about construction. Before I do something myself and it goes wrong, is wrong or whatever, I let it be done.
There was once such a nice calculation: The craftsman is twice as fast as a layman. Let him cost 30€ per hour. So you have to work twice as much to save those 30€. And calculate that on your savings through self-performance ... e.g. saving 6000€ = 6000 / 30 makes 200 hours of craftsman or 400 hours for you!
And that doesn’t include errors from you.

I’d rather do a few overtime hours to have extra money, in my opinion that’s more worthwhile.

And regarding construction time, Viebrockhaus is probably the only one who promises 3 months, realistically it’s more likely over 6 months.

We basically see self-performance the same way: we’d rather have it done professionally and pay the craftsman a little more than do it ourselves and botch it up. What I meant by self-performance was more coordination and things you can do well yourself. Regarding the construction time you’re surely right. The three months was more of an ideal anyway. I don’t really believe we can manage that in a quarter of a year. I keep to Hermann Hesse’s words: “A goal reached is no goal.” Joking aside. In principle, a short construction time is of course appealing to me/us. But I personally don’t want to rush anything. Better safe and good than fast and botched. We can still bear it in our apartment a little longer.

No problem, choose a good company, hire a construction supervisor/building coordinator and then it will run smoothly. Important questions are clarified on weekends or by phone with the supervisor. Works excellently for us and no burden from self-performance etc.

So far I have no clue about construction supervisors. However, that sounds like a reasonable option in our case. I just searched for it and found many right away. What criteria should I pay attention to? Do they all work on an hourly basis or are there flat rates as well? And how much do they take on average (if one can say that)? And thanks in advance for your answer(s)!

So, here is the second part of my answers...

In your case, I recommend doing the work yourselves that is limited to floor coverings as well as wallpapering and/or painting walls and ceilings. Gardening should also be affordable, everything else I would entrust to a trustworthy company.

Our house will be ready for the aforementioned own work after 4-5 months of solid construction time.

For our screed alone, a drying phase of 4-6 weeks is planned.

I had imagined it somewhat like you described. As I said, we have already adjusted our idea of the construction time. I will stay away from the flooring – my husband will do that . Instead, I will take on the "garden."

So, as I said, I find the screed thing kind of strange. Why does it take so long? It seems somehow medieval to me... With today's building materials, it should dry faster. Well, as it seems, I had the wrong idea about that until now. We will also plan 6 weeks for the screed.

Building feels like a second full-time job. It is certainly doable with two children and others have managed it, but you should definitely be prepared to visit the construction site as often as possible, ideally daily, but at least twice a week to check whether everything is being done the way you want it.

Yes, we will definitely check that and visit the construction site as often as possible. My concern was that I cannot assess it well yet since I am not familiar with construction. Maybe that will come with time.

It is (and I speak from personal experience) very stressful and nerve-wracking. Besides that, as long as the construction is ongoing, you have ZERO free time and get less sleep. It also strains the relationship and the family, and in general, building in Germany is the third most common reason for divorce. That's just how it is. It's best to prepare for this from the outset.

I think that sounds quite harsh already. Were your experiences really that bad? I am definitely aware that building is no fun event. But I really don't want to worry about divorce. We haven't been married that long yet...

But this time also passes, and afterwards you have created something beautiful, and sometimes it is even fun to delve into this new subject, learn something, and be able to apply the new knowledge.

That sounds much better!!!

You also have to be prepared that selecting, i.e. choosing your fittings (interior doors, floors, tiles, sanitary fixtures, etc.) also takes a lot of time. Of course, you want something beautiful. "Oh, for EUR 150 and EUR 85 there we won't really watch the money" – well, and suddenly we were already EUR 30,000 more expensive than originally planned.

I'm a bit concerned about exactly that. As I said, a few euros don't matter to us. But suddenly 30,000 more euros. That is quite something... There's definitely going to be a lot of work and a huge learning curve ahead of us!

Topic outdoor facilities: You also need paved areas, paths, edging, garbage bins, fences, doors and possibly gates, ground preparation, gravel substructures for paths and terraces including tamping and compacting, humus application, fine grading. Someone has to do all that as well, and all together it roughly costs at least another EUR 30,000. So plan for this in your finances! You can sow the lawn yourself and plant shrubs and small trees too, but those are the least expensive items.

Sounds like things the construction supervisor could take care of/co-ordinate...?

Do you already have a building permit? Because you often have to wait about 3 months for that as well.

No. But thanks for the hint that it takes that long. I better not even ask why that is... Long live bureaucracy!

In your case absolutely necessary as well: a good architect (with practical construction site experience, definitely no theoretical planner, very important!!!), or a good general contractor. But be sure to have them constantly monitored (either by a sworn expert, or by a construction-experienced architect who checks at least once a week).

As for the architect, we'll take you at your word. My husband nodded vigorously when I read that to him yesterday!!! Now we just have to find the practitioner you described...

Conclusion: it is definitely doable, but do not underestimate it! It feels like a second full-time job!

Okay, thanks. We definitely won’t underestimate that!

All good things come in threes. Here is the last part of my answers:

My wife and I are also facing the problem of having to juggle family, job, and building a house. We already have our building plot and now want to move into our own house as quickly and stress-free as possible.

We really thought a long time about how to manage everything. On the internet, we then came across prefabricated houses from öko-domo. They build solid prefabricated houses. Last Saturday, we immediately attended an information event there. Everything sounded pretty good at first – fast construction time, no stress, etc. We could also talk to a couple who have already built with them and apparently live quite happily in their new house now. From this couple, we also got several useful tips, especially regarding financing and long-term energy savings. Obviously, the system is well-suited to build a KfW energy-efficient house or passive house.

We will now inquire further about other providers of prefabricated houses and then make a final decision.

Well then, welcome to the club of building families. To be honest, a prefabricated house has so far not been an option for us, even though it would of course be a plus in terms of time. But we want to build our own home. That way, we will get something individual – and not a cookie-cutter house! But still, thanks for the tip and good luck with the building (process).

Hello everyone,

I would like to see anyone who moves into a self-built home within 2-3 months. We built solid and took 8 months.

Okay, I admit: The three months were a bit of a dream. But after the 8 months you were completely finished, right?

Okay, friends of ours took a prefabricated house. For them, it also worked within 3 months. It’s just a question of what you want. For our friends, the "build" was completely stress-free. In the end, they only had to put up the wallpaper and lay the flooring themselves.

Best regards
Nina
PS: Our screed wonderfully needed 10 weeks to be ready for covering. :-(

As I already said: We prefer to build solid. Even though the stress and time issues are of course understandable. But my impression remains: A prefabricated house is simply less personal. Plus: A solid house is simply... more solid!

***

So, that’s it from my side. As I said, I will try to answer more quickly in future – and with fewer words.

Best regards

Germanissima

PS: How do you handle longer texts / multiple replies? I find using @ very confusing...