Floor plan feedback single-family house for 4-5 people, 200 sqm on a 500 sqm plot in BW

  • Erstellt am 2025-07-10 14:13:28

hanghaus2023

2025-07-11 15:21:36
  • #1
Who still calculates with built-in space today?

Writing down 38 and drawing 45 is also not quite right. Although I like the 45 or 38 better than the 50 from the stock.
 

KJaneway

2025-07-11 15:28:38
  • #2
Hello 11ant,

now we have the situation that we have agreed on a lump sum fee with our planner for service phases 1 to 4. He also did not want to split them up. Whether that speaks for or against this planner I cannot and do not want to assess. Compared to the HOAI, however, we are paying a mere pittance here. Possibly, this also says something about what to expect from the drafts.

Due to the longer absence of our planner, we also inquired with an architectural firm and organized a meeting. They also make a very good impression and offer us service phases 1 to 4 for about 60% of the HOAI (or separated into service phases 1 + 2 for a mid-four-figure amount and service phases 3 + 4 for a low five-figure amount). However, they also gave us the tip that they basically find the existing plans usable and advised us to continue first with the planner. It would be a shame to pay for the planning service twice.


Can you give me an impression of what that means? I imagine it roughly like this (not necessarily in the correct order):

    [*]Check the statics of the basement.
    [*]Carefully dismantle the house down to the top edge of the basement.
    [*]Extend the floor slab for the new floor plan.
    [*]Properly insulate the old basement ceiling (how does that work in the area of the vaulted basement?) I see sealing the old structure against the new as the biggest challenge.
    [*]Place the house on the existing plinth (about 1 m above the currently planned ground floor level).
    [*]Then 2 attic floors plus a flatter roof, or like here 1 attic floor with a rather very steep roof. Although the 2 attic floors are already a pretty tough requirement. It would have to be checked up to which roof pitch (towards flat) the building authority agrees. 2 attic floors plus 45-degree roof will certainly end up about a meter too high compared to the neighboring houses.



Not the second variant of the basement rule. I only know one from you anyway. The two variants I mean are

    [*]Variant: house with basement and therefore smaller footprint
    [*]Variant: house without basement but with a larger footprint

The basement rule economically leads to variant 2. The small plot and the desire for a lot of green space to variant 1. In the needs assessment, we decided on the latter. That can be reconsidered.



Conditionally: A valid development plan including text part exists. This must be followed. However, the plan is from the 1930s. Since then, many deviations have been approved. We are allowed to wish for these (as in §34) if we find them in the neighborhood as well. This is the oral statement of the responsible building authority officer.


We did that. Our wish was: basement plus as small a footprint as possible. Corridor between garage and house.
If we now consider omitting the basement, the question arises again, because the footprint may/must then become somewhat larger in order to accommodate the utility room, storage, and hobby room also in the other floors. Especially in our ground floor according to the previous sketch I see no more room for more, with the same outer walls.


On top of that, I don’t like them either. To be honest, so far we have only talked to the planner about the interior planning and have somewhat neglected the exterior views.
I am already planning to basically convert all windows into normal half-height windows. There should still be enough light with two windows per children’s room or four windows in the living room. Also, the stair lighting, this light band, I don’t find so clever. I would probably make one half-height window per stair landing instead of one long glass element from top to bottom.


At least the planner and also the architectural firm indicated to me that this is a valid method for initial cost estimation. Only the planner explains to me that the price is including VAT. The architects say that it is added on top.
 

nordanney

2025-07-11 16:00:17
  • #3

You can also distribute 40sqm of basement over a few more sqm of ground area. You have three floors - that is exactly what makes the basement so expensive compared to the small increase in ground area.
You won't notice the 15sqm of green space. In return, you save light shafts and possibly an external basement staircase, making it area-neutral (for the garden).
 

11ant

2025-07-11 17:00:20
  • #4

That is a simplistic calculation. Discount planners regularly start drawing too early because they lack the professional experience for the appropriate level of consultation depth in Module A. What does your planning cost if you put the medical malpractice of an unreasonable demolition of an existing basement (up to the top edge of the new basement!) on the cost center "planning without a clue"?

It certainly says something about the self-expectations of discount planners, and with what poor performance they consider their fee as "earned."

What regularly speaks against such a planner is that the scope of mandate "service phases 1 to 4" is the favorite of the " " architects; i.e., those who, simply because they never accompany a second half, never experience the moment of truth (when the construction costs are settled and their estimator is exposed as a daydreamer). Even "both-halves architects" (service phases 1 to 8) do not estimate construction costs with vascular-surgical precision, but they evaluate them at the end and estimate with increasing practice more accurately. For the clients, this practically means the essential difference between just touching the buffer or an expensive refinancing.

In a construction project with a general contractor, performing service phase 4 is regularly "twice done" if the architect has already included it – whether service phase 4 is charged by the HOAI rate or discount makes less of a difference than Little Erna (or Fritzchen) thinks. The contractual and fee-related separation between the service phases of Module A and Module B plays a far less decisive role than the hugely process-technically significant pause (> dough rest) in between. The dough rest serves to ground the clients and, together with the setting of the course, also for calibrating the project volume. Much more money can be thrown out of the window here than the (apparent) fee difference between HOAI and discount could ever amount to!


Above all, you decided it at the wrong time: it should have been between service phase 1 and service phase 2 – now it has become avoidably more expensive. I would phrase it differently, by the way:
1. Variant: space between the basement exterior walls used
2. Variant: space between L-walls instead of basement exterior walls wasted for soil,
plus above-ground volume inflated with basement replacement room
(based on the unfortunately most common case that someone raises a slab foundation)
or:
1. Variant: unnecessarily created surplus storage space and consequently excavated a pit including slope
2. Variant: only created the actually needed house connection and storage room and therefore also needed footprint
(based on the second most common case, to build a flea market goods asylum on a slab foundation plot).


Sorry, remembered incorrectly. But even for exemptions, the cubature of the existing building serves as a strong argument.


Here we are actually already exceeding the scope of the pro bono consulting here in the open consultation hour. But yes, roughly like that: check the statics of the basement # dismantle the existing building to top edge of basement # no silly patching for the wrongly planned "new" floor plan, but a new development with clean "additions" # insulation of the basement ceiling here exceptionally (partly?) above top edge of basement (not for discount planners!). If you want me to accompany you: please get in touch quickly, keep in mind the specialist doctor-like waiting list. I have no time for late risers but am happy otherwise.



Of course. Space is built, you cannot reasonably charge two-dimensionally. That would be almost like buying pears and paying for apples.

I also think, like the (?) OP, that the planner just mistyped here (unfortunately, this looks differently clear on mobile and desktop). A 50° roof pitch (and especially "about 50°") has the charm of quickly creating a half floor.

From my point of view, it is becoming brutally clear here that the discount planner was probably the biggest money sink (or would still be if one does not file his work so far as tuition fees).
 

ypg

2025-07-11 17:42:38
  • #5

Do you have to know him? Who is he supposed to be? Blogger? Vlogger? They didn’t invent the world either and are often not right. Recently, a supposedly well-known architect from YT hasn’t shown such great work here. But we are here now to paint the basement basement and generate living space.

It’s heading in the right direction as far as I’m concerned, yes!

Just because he made a typo now? Such nonsense, that simply happens when you don’t overwrite everything in a hurry during changes. The draft is not of poor quality – we are allowed to decide here and take other paths.
 

KJaneway

2025-07-11 17:51:44
  • #6

No, I was rather referring to the price for the service. If I buy a car for 40,000 or for 20,000, I probably shouldn’t be surprised in the end if the cheaper one has less equipment. Yes, I know the comparison is flawed.
Everyone makes typos sometimes! It happens to me every day.


He already offers all service phases. I have been inside houses where he was in charge of construction management.

What do you mean by that?
 

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