Low ridge height results in a low knee wall

Don't the prefab house manufacturers know that development plans often specify a maximum house height?

Yes, they do know that, and the advisor in the video also mentioned it.

What use are all the great floor plans to me if the most important information, namely the height of the house and the required exterior dimensions, are not taken into account.

Such a video is not a datasheet. You can deal with all development plan framework conditions, but not guess them all.

Yes, my wife thinks a low knee wall is stupid, she's right, so am I.

You can also make a dwarf wall, meaning the knee wall basically goes inward.

If everything under the roof is counted as living space, then that is like in the video about Danhaus... no no, that won't work at all.

No, the loft from the video does not count here; nor does the space behind the dwarf wall.

Well observed, I am dropping the plot. Let someone else buy it who can deal with it, I have no emotional attachment.

That is a good attitude. Forcing the combination of a plot and a house that do not fit together is a struggle many others already attempt.

Back to the core question with which a seller blurted out, why do you even want to build?

You will find the core question of this forum at the top of the floor plan section as a questionnaire. Copy it into your house planning thread, into the first post, and put a link to it here. With the completed questionnaire, you help the community to advise you.

What am I overlooking?

A house is optimally planned according to the development plan on the individual plot. If you roughly sketch the section, you could still stay within the limit with a house width of 10 meters and a KS of about 1.50. That is precisely the art of planning, to work out the optimum or to use the dimensions for yourself. However, this also means not fixating on centimeters. The architect can plan rooms with 2.65 meters that appear higher or more spacious than rooms with 2.75 meters. With the house width, you can also influence the height of the house... and a 30-degree angle should also be drawable by a math dummy: 2 squares to the left and one up.

Then you have to plan creatively with your architect. With a ridge height of 7.20m, you can already plan something nice. The floor/ceiling construction just has to be optimized, or you have to be satisfied with 265 cm (which will already be more than 90% of all houses).

I see it that way too.

But if you have wishes from which you do not want to deviate and no pressure from the plot, then better leave it.

@ ypg, it’s all good. I just can’t quite get the numbers right. Following your advice, I’ve now drawn a section. The limits are top and bottom. Analogous to Downing Street 10, I have taken from the given upper edge – which, according to the development plan, derives its reference point from the street surface (!) – a stair step of 15 cm and am now inside the house on the floor.

Now I want a ceiling height of 2.70. Then comes the floor slab of 40 cm.
If I go from top to bottom, I first assume the ridge tile with 8 cm, then comes the insulation (I think the rafters are in between, no idea). Here on the net 40 cm are mentioned. So in total around 50 cm.
If I now measure this in the box, then the knee wall is somewhere around 0.70 cm. Question: How do you get 1.50?
If I continue following my little drawing for the time being, then the upright wall begins on the upper floor (and that’s the only way I want to calculate at the moment .... see pictures from Danhaus (children come to us only during holidays) at 2.30 left and right of the center, so together 4.60.

Multiplied by the 13.20 net depth of the house, that is actually possible living area on the upper floor – that is “real” living space – 60 sqm. Living area for me are the rooms where I actually stay, that is either standing, sitting, or lying down. Therefore, I stick with my 114 sqm from earlier + 60 now in the knee wall area, making a total of 174 sqm. The knee wall can also be enhanced, as dormers are allowed.

Please: this is my kind of worst-case consideration, because I don’t want to deceive myself, and assume or present things more positively or imagine them more favorably than they are upon critical review. Because I want to move in later, and beforehand know where the constructive disadvantages are that I have already consciously accepted in compromise.

I wish all forum participants, especially those who took the trouble to help an absolute novice move forward a bit, a Merry and healthy Christmas!

Good morning, and Merry Christmas!

Since other forum participants are also not taking a break and are actively working on their houses, I dare to share another piece of information in the forum; also to maintain continuity in the thread.

For the first time, I now have something reasonable in my hands that gives me clear indications of what might be possible on the property. The section contains my maximum idea, taking into account the requirements of the development plan. "Usable area" (that’s how it says in the description) on the ground floor approx. 125 - 130 sqm, attic 75 - 80 plus 2 dormers each 7.5 sqm.

The decisive factor is the knee wall. Apparently none. Only if I reduce the ground floor ceiling height to 2.70 m, about 10 cm would result. I further understand it this way: if you make the house narrower than 14 m, then the knee wall becomes higher, but the sqm number lower.

Overall, in my opinion, the atmosphere in this house is worse than in the Danhaus example (nothing against Danhaus, but that’s just the smallest one in Frechen and posted this video).

For me, this section is a clear message: the attic is a large storage room, nothing else. Feeling comfortable there is not possible, in my opinion. For children it might be okay, but not for me. In that respect, it looks like a purely residential area for young families. Perhaps the city fathers wanted exactly that. All okay by me, but I need to know exactly that beforehand. If they had written that somewhere, or a newspaper provider had done an interview, I could have saved myself all the trouble.

Let me end with a critical word about the great FFH protected areas, which outdo each other with fancy houses in their prefab house "worlds." "Dear house interested party, please note that this house will in all likelihood not be able to be built on a plot as usually designated by most municipalities." That would be fair.

Finally, something conciliatory. From now on, two young families can be happy. Because an old daddy releases two reserved plots again. That is also a nice Christmas message?

The planners simply do not want a (An)Stadtvilla in this development area. Normally, you check the development plan beforehand to see if you can agree with it. The development plan is available for inspection at the administration for 1 month before it is adopted. You can already see where things are headed, but you can also file objections. Otherwise, off to search for your dream plot!

The attic is a large storage room, nothing else. Feeling comfortable there is not possible, imho.

And this, when you just calculated for us that there are at least 60m² of "real" living space upstairs plus possible dormers available?

that makes a total of 174 sqm

What do you actually want? You haven't given the forum, the city officials, or the house providers any chance to show you possibilities.

Something conciliatory at the end.

Who has to reconcile with whom and why?