Expanded clay: advantages and disadvantages, thickness, suppliers

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

The most crucial thing is coordination regarding the basement issue, or that with "uneven" semi-detached houses the one with the basement builds BEFORE the one without a basement. The profile uniformity (i.e., keeping as consistent a roofline as possible over a longer stretch) is the second “most important” point. Ideally, as already mentioned, you should use the same shell construction contractor. In your case, that would mean building with Schwabenhaus as well, at least as a "shell construction" (if you are bold enough to seek your salvation in self-contracting the interior trades).

In the posts listed above, there are also references to external contributions of mine on the topic; for googled internet sources, 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 across several projects, as is predominant in my area, in pumice concrete, and the difference to expanded clay is ultimately marginal despite their different origins; the building materials at least are cousins.

Contractors mostly prefer one and a half wall building materials: with one they have the most experience, and they use the other in special cases or when their favorite temporarily has a less attractive purchase price, which would spoil their calculation. And some of them spoil things with horror stories about whatever is too expensive for them to buy or what they lack enough experience with. There is no philosopher's stone or Columbus’s egg, but also no devil. Likewise, I have no reservations against a timber frame panel builder like Schwabenhaus. So feel free to assess benevolently whether that might also be something for you. I am also happy to personally accompany the project.

The elements were also produced on site directly next to the local construction company.

We have discussed timber frame construction intensively and have come to the conclusion that it is not for us for various reasons. Above all, it simply becomes more expensive with Schwabenhaus.

The building line in front is the same, but at the back, our side will be both longer and higher than the neighbor’s. As it seems now, we will probably be the first to build and the neighbors will then follow shortly (longer waiting time with Schwabenhaus). We were told that it would definitely be very advantageous to be the first.

Now we have 12x8m, really nice for a semi-detached house.

As I said, as an uncle who has been dealing with this stuff for forty years, I say that both construction methods are equivalent. And in case Schwabenhaus is too expensive for you, I already waved with the Ausbauhaus-Pfahl. Someone told you something without having read the Goalkeeper thread beforehand: because if the neighbors decide to join the basement later, it would not have been advantageous. If the planner is clever, the best possible profile "similarity" should be achievable even under these circumstances. Overall, it reads to me as if there are already concrete plans on both sides - then I recommend discussing them here as well :) Oh, twelve meters, and yet the neighbor is building shorter ???