House demolition / Soil assessment and many questions

Hello dear forum,

I will inherit a plot of land next year. On it stands an old house (bungalow) that is partially basemented, as well as an adjacent garage. This garage is exactly on the property line. Since I am an absolute layman in this area and want to be a bit prepared, I have a few questions:

1.) What kind of costs should I expect for a demolition? Can I also do it myself if I organize a construction waste container?

2.) Can I build on top of the basement again if it is reinforced or if the statics would support it, or do you advise that it should be completely removed?

3.) Should I leave the garage standing because of the boundary? How many meters would I then have to setback?

4.) Can I already have a soil survey done, or should it be done rather soon? I ask because this way everything could be prepared little by little and it would also save money.

I am very excited about this.
I would like to thank you very much in advance for the answers.

Hello,

I'm totally excited about it

I can understand! Still, you won't like my answer ...

I would like to sincerely thank you in advance for the answers

Here in the forum you will find plenty of information on your questions; have a good read. I can hardly imagine that I am the only one who has little to no desire to answer the same questions over and over again; just because the willingness to read is missing

Rhenish greetings

Hello Poila,

first of all, a question upfront: How do you know that you will inherit a plot of land erbst next year? I ask only because an inheritance also requires that someone passes away...

Regarding your questions:

1. That totally depends on what materials are used in the house and how large the building is. The demolition of our "old" single-family house cost us a total of EUR 13,500.00 (demolition and disposal). It was a 1.5 story single-family house, fully basemented, footprint approx. 7 m x 8 m and a garage. We had offers ranging from EUR 10,000.00 to EUR 35,000.00. Of course, you can also do it yourself, but we have experienced that it is absolutely not worthwhile – our demolition contractor reused various materials from our house and passed this price advantage on to us. If we had done everything ourselves, we would most likely have ended up with the same amount just for landfill costs. => Obtain and compare sufficient offers!!!

2. Of course, you can build again on the basement, but as you already wrote, you may have to reckon with structural reinforcements, adjustment of water and sewage pipes, stairwell, changes (reinforcement) of insulation, etc. In addition, you then also have the risk that the old basement is used as an excuse for all sorts of "construction defects" (moisture, cracking, ...). We decided to demolish the basement as well and build a completely new one.

3. Garages are still allowed to be built on the boundary (subject to some regulations). In our case, the following requirements had to be met:
- Maximum boundary construction 15 m, of which maximum 9 m in a row.
- Wall area on the boundary < 25 sqm.

4. I would only do a soil survey after the demolition, then the geologist can also drill where the house will be located. Such a survey is quickly done and with EUR 800.00 - EUR 1,000.00 (according to our offer prices) not unaffordable either.

Regards,

Dirk

Welcome to the forum.

1.) What costs should I expect for a demolition? Can I do it myself if I organize construction waste containers?

I would rather let the professionals do a complete demolition. It goes much faster and will be cheaper than doing it yourself. Besides, they will also take care of the disposal. If you demolish the house bit by bit, it will take a very long time and you will have a lot of work. And not everything is allowed in the construction waste container. These are still reasonably priced since they are usually charged by cubic meters. But many things do not belong in a construction waste container, but in a mixed container, and those are expensive because they are charged by weight. You can quickly spend several hundred euros just for a mixed container.