Evaluation cellar / settlement house Bavaria

That sounds good! You can renovate according to your ideas and still have an affordable home after the renovation costs. Good luck!

Hello again,

do you recommend a specific approach for such a renovation, or are there possibly already predefined or experience-based project plans? Maybe also here in the forum?

For example, first completely gut the place, remove wallpaper and everything that doesn’t pay rent.

Then bring in the window installer so they can take measurements and record the order.

Initial meeting with the electrician -> make chases

Replace windows

Renew electricity + approval

Then we would like to renew the supply and wastewater pipes, possibly also heating pipes, does that come before the electricity or during the electrical work?

Close up walls, plaster

Replace floors

Install new radiators

Install new kitchen

Insulate the attic.

Thanks in advance

If it already starts like that from below, I would think twice about it...

If it already starts like that from below, I would think twice about it...

Why? A basement as described by the OP is completely normal for the construction year of the house. For houses of this age, a basement is only considered wet when water in liquid form is present somewhere, and even that - depending on the circumstances - does not necessarily have to be a huge problem. However, due to the properties of an old building basement, it is very difficult to impossible to create any kind of living space in these rooms. The basements are not designed for that, and retrofitting them accordingly costs a lot of money, if it is even possible at all. Excavating and draining or wrapping the walls anew can also make sense, but is often unnecessary, depending on the circumstances. @OP: In the vast expanse of the internet, there is also a lot of experience regarding old building renovations, especially in the timber-framed sector (these often also have old basements with similar problems) – I can only recommend looking into this.

In really old basements, depending on the situation, you cannot store everything, especially in the case of organic substances (wood, clothing, paper, cardboard) you have to be careful, otherwise you might end up cultivating a dry rot colony and then the fun really starts. If you keep these points in mind and keep an eye on the steel beams / reinforce them if necessary, the basements and houses will still stand for the next few decades...

Your renovation list is not insignificant (requires approval?). Keep in mind that when gutting the house, many surprises will become visible, and in the end, not much more than the shell will remain. For example, "replace floors" sounds so trivial and quickly done... just wait to see what all comes to light and, for instance, how crooked and uneven the joists are, which you currently can't even see. It would be a shame to put such a project on a only rudimentarily sealed basement.

Decide promptly: choose the cheap option, i.e., the building savings contract proposal: preserve as much of the house and its soul as possible, only change what is necessary. Or: do the complete renovation to new-build standards... at new-build prices... Your current plan between the two options has the potential to become just as extensive and expensive as the complete renovation, only with many complications because you didn’t want to admit it from the start.

For me, this is a completely normal renovation list. Except for the plaster, we did all of that too, and I would say we are far from new-build standards. For us, some things are still "old" (from the 90s or 2010): roof, heating system, facade, front door, basement windows, interior stairs, exterior stairs, and some things in the basement.

We also gutted first. Everything out of the old bathrooms down to the beams and bricks. In the living rooms, we (unfortunately) left the plaster, where the electrician made his channels and set up the construction power box in the basement, and we always had a cable reel in the house from that so everyone could pull their own power. At the same time, we had the plumbers there for the new water and heating pipes and the rough installation in the bathrooms and the new water pipes in the basement with the new external water connection; they also found and removed old lead pipes in the basement. Meanwhile, everyone got their water downstairs in the old shower in the basement. For us, everything basically ran in parallel; we only had a few months' time. Windows, floors, walls, ceilings, interior doors—all just as time allowed. The radiators came when I was done with the walls there, but they had completed the entire installation beforehand. The electrician first left his cables hanging generously above the suspended ceilings; we just pulled the cables through later. We also did drywall, and in between, the electrician and plumber pulled their lines through there. Plastering walls logically comes after the electrical work and before installing the radiators. I would do the windows before plastering; that’s just more practical, otherwise you might end up damaging the fresh plaster afterwards. Floors ideally at the very end, otherwise everything gets dirty, or you have to protect everything carefully. Kitchen last of all. Insulating the attic... if new electrical work and windows are needed there, keep that in mind too. All the sanding and filling really makes a mess, so I would perhaps do that more at the beginning than at the end. Basically all doable and no rocket science, but a huge amount of work and you need companies that are a bit flexible. On the one hand, they also have to adjust a bit according to the level of owner participation and the status of the other companies. Oh yes, our tiler was really great; he always did his work as it fitted—he came when we had finished the drywall or partial new plaster in the bathrooms and kitchen. Of course, we always had to wait for the companies in between, but there was really enough to do; if necessary, we continued working in the garden, so boredom definitely wasn’t an issue.