Expanded clay: advantages and disadvantages, thickness, suppliers

I do hope that you are building the semi-detached house on your own and not each taking half for yourself, otherwise it will be an adventure with stories for a lifetime. Because then I would coordinate with my semi-detached neighbor. Otherwise, chaos is pre-programmed. So I hope you are building the semi-detached house yourselves? If not, it will certainly be an exciting time for you where you will need a lot of patience.

Nop, each on their own ;) The neighbors have already signed with Schwabenhaus and their build will probably be shorter than ours. We are in regular contact and also cooperative with each other. What should be considered, or on which points do we or the construction companies need to coordinate?

Yes, the second house is built stone on stone. The company boss had software that calculated the stone formats and quantities from the floor plan. His statement, that it is so accurate he only ends up with a maximum of one wheelbarrow of waste from the construction, was true even though it turned out to be the employee. The first house had about 25-30cm wall thickness, built by a prefabricated house company, the second by a small family business. In which postal code area are you building?

Interesting. And why would the second house be built differently, if I may ask, and which company built the first one? We received the statement from a company that prefers to build with aerated concrete that they don't like using Poroton as much because on the 100 km to the construction site it sometimes happened that the entire load was damaged because the stones were so sensitive (thin-walled), or the waste at the construction site is so high. I don't know what to make of that.

The first house was connected to the property, The second was our decision and we wanted stone upon stone

bzw. der Verschnitt auf dem Bau so hoch ist. Weiß nicht was davon zu halten ist.

Every general contractor only praises their own building material and wall construction. The tip to use the same shell builder for both semi-detached houses is important

Everyone general contractor praises only their building material and wall structure. The tip to use the same shell builder for both semi-detached houses is important

One specific general contractor we contacted builds with both, but spoke poorly of Poroton. Unfortunately, it was too late to choose the same shell builder; the neighbors have already signed with the timber frame builder .....

What should be considered, or on which points do we or the construction companies need to coordinate?

There is the famous Goalkeeper thread about the adventure with a worst-case end-terrace house (which is basically what semi-detached houses are, too). Otherwise, I have already summarized all the essentials in all of my posts in semi-detached house threads, see as well as and

Technically, a profile match at the "joint" is already sufficient to ensure the best possible fit.

Of decisive importance is the coordination regarding the basement issue, namely that in "crooked" semi-detached houses the party who builds the shared basement builds BEFORE the one without a basement. Profile congruence (i.e., having the same roofline over as long a distance as possible) is the second "most important" point. Ideally, as already said, you choose the same shell construction contractor. In your case, that would mean also building with Schwabenhaus, at least as a "shell house" (if you are bold enough to want to seek your salvation in self-managing the finishing trades).

In the posts listed above, there are also references to external posts by me on the subject; when googling, baulotse-hoffmann should now be replaced by bauen-jetzt. There you will also find "The Stone Mantra of 11ant" regarding your original question. I myself have lived for ages and through several properties predominantly in pumice in my area; the difference to lightweight expanded clay aggregate is ultimately somewhere behind the decimal point despite the different origins, the building materials are at least cousins.

Construction contractors usually have one and a half preferred wall building materials: with one they have the most experience, and they use the other in special cases or when their preferred material temporarily has a less attractive purchase price that would spoil their calculations accordingly. And some of them disparage with scare stories whatever is too expensive for them to buy or whatever they have too little experience with. There is no philosopher's stone or Columbus's egg, but neither is there a devil. Likewise, I have no concerns about a timber frame panel builder like Schwabenhaus. So feel free to examine, with an open mind, whether that might also be something for you. I am happy to personally accompany the project as well.