My wife and I had an appointment yesterday evening with a site manager who is connected to us through more than five degrees of separation. As it turned out, he works at Keitel-Haus. He strongly advised us against a house built in solid construction, with arguments like:
The "arguments" of the biased specialists (who are otherwise more salespeople than site managers) regularly differ only in wording but not in "quality." I can only agree to keep a five-corner distance from this gentleman (and perhaps to thank him for the warning not to flirt with this provider).
In general, I advise all prospective builders to decide on the construction method as follows: first, to preliminarily plan the house with a self-chosen architect, and before entering the refinement to the design planning, approach four to five providers (two timber builders, two masons, and possibly one more from any faction) openly regarding what this design (and optionally a similar design from their standard catalog) would roughly cost. From the feedback, one then derives conclusions and lets the insights flow into the further design process. Typical results of this round are:
X) one of the construction methods is (for the respective design, which can never be generalized) significantly cheaper
Y) it’s (as usually) more or less the same either way
Z) knowing early on that you need more money or have to be more modest.
PS: Our neighbors in the timber frame house can no longer sleep when our lawnmower starts early at 11 a.m.
Did you give a robotic mower a sports exhaust, or does it beep like a garbage truck when reversing?