Is it possible to save costs smartly when building a house?

Quality in ceramics means that it simply flows off by itself and beads off, and no dirt accumulates. Not quality are those cheap things that get slightly rough over time and thus hold dirt better. In my opinion, this happens with all cheap lines from all manufacturers (the GÜ-standard things or those installed in rental apartments). But they really cost only a fraction of the real ceramics. I’m not saying here that you shouldn’t do it. Percentage-wise, you do save a lot of money.

That’s wishful thinking; the crap sticks everywhere equally.

Regarding the ceramic quality and the partly horrendous surcharges. In my opinion, you are not paying for better goods, but for fashion. When I think of the toilets and sinks in our administration, they are Allia, they are really used more than at home because they are used by dozens of people, yet after years they are still white, clean, and glossy. Installed, if I remember correctly, in 2009. Karsten

Hi,

We ordered bathroom ceramics and vanity units from Hornbach. They have a lowest price guarantee that they really stick to. In other words, they match _ANY_ price and even undercut by 10%. This explicitly includes online shops. It worked very well for us! However, they are currently cutting down their range; until last year, they even ordered items for you that they normally don’t stock. Now you are limited to the "normal" suppliers. Keramag is included there as well.

Personally, I would always buy the kitchen (only the furniture) at Ikea and have the assembly done via Blauarbeit.de or MyHammer.de. Appliances then from an online shop. Of course, you have to be able to plan that yourself.

We bought parquet flooring from a local timber dealer, who lowered the price from about €55/sqm to about €35/sqm after several rounds of negotiation.

For the outdoor facilities, you can save some money if you let the shell constructor do the roughest work. They normally use really large equipment, where 250 sqm of topsoil can be leveled quickly or 50 sqm of driveway can be gravelled fast. The garden landscapers often come with these mini excavators, which per hour aren’t much cheaper (the driver is the expensive part!), but move only 1/10 of the quantity of a large excavator in 5 hours.

Regards,

Andreas

I'll give a tip not to overestimate certain things:

The door handle, as mentioned above, is the part you use to open the door. It does not have to be made of brass or be designer quality - the standard part from the GÜ is sufficient here. The same applies to the doors themselves: there is no need for a wood veneer that will be overlooked after 10 years.

The yard can be made of decorative gravel.

Spots are not necessary; a conventional lamp outlet in the middle of the room is enough.

Toilets with a water-repellent effect also need to be cleaned, so the premium Lotus version is not necessary.

Rain showers are very impractical; an elongated drain is incredibly expensive.

Light switches also look good in the standard white version.

Regards, Yvonne

I completely agree with Yvonne. And the rough leveling by the general contractor's civil engineering is also correct. I would like to emphasize the statement [Zierkies in den Hof und ggf. auf Auffahrt in Splitt erweitern]. Because although I am far from being ideologically eco-friendly, I do see with new buildings an unfortunate tendency towards paving and sealing, which leads to major problems with heavy rain everywhere there are slopes. And heavy rain has become more frequent lately. Karsten

The door handle, as mentioned above, is the part you use to open the door. It then does not need to be made of brass or design-wise valuable - here the standard part from GÜ is sufficient.

In the developer house, yes - whoever builds the architectural classic of tomorrow, in my opinion, cannot avoid FSB. I meant it more as an example of easily replaceable details. So without judging how relevant handles are.