Does anyone have experience with the topic of solid construction with independent awarding of all trades and achieving the KfW 40 standard for subsidized loans? [...] So far, we have obtained an offer from a turnkey general contractor, but we are not very satisfied with the pricing. Currently, we are still waiting for another offer from a different company. We have also already visited a shell builder who has built twice within our family, and the pricing would certainly look better there. [...] Regarding KfW 40, of course everything must be complied with and documented. Can this also be achieved with independent awarding together with a good energy consultant, or would you recommend a general contractor in this situation? [ / ] For planning and support, we would of course commission an architect. So differently asked: is individual awarding feasible with a good architect and energy consultant or still not advisable?
If you as building owners are first-time builders, independent awarding is too rough a sea for pedal boat captains. The test is called "Blower
Door," but in the end, it is the same whether you heat out through the doors or the sockets. With individual awarding, coordination becomes correspondingly more expensive if everything is really to mesh tightly. EH40 goes beyond the legal standard, which on balance costs money. Many building families find it tempting for financing to see which other conditions they can obtain with it. Whether it "pays off" financially can only be determined for the specific building family-house design constellation—I therefore cannot generally say it is not worth it for you. But unfortunately, it is highly likely that it is not worth it for you. Don’t forget: hordes of highly paid lobbyists have long calculated that it "works well" in their interest. For developers, it is supposed to be an economic booster. If it is "profitable" for individual homebuilding families, the professionals would have "done something wrong" from the perspective of their breadwinners and it is a "collateral damage" as a single case. Financially benefiting broad strata of the population was not the (actual) design goal of this political product.
For the majority of building families, the reality is that their specific house design results, for example, in the standard "EH52," thus fulfilling the Building Energy Act (similar to EH55) very well, but EH52 is not a subsidized level. Going from EH52 to the next subsidized level EH40 (KfW40) causes such an extensive package of measures for individual builders that it roughly offsets or even consumes the advantage of the lower conditions. It is not uncommon that, calculated mid-term, part of the additional costs remain with the building family. As said, this is by design, specialists have worked thoroughly on this.
For a large developer with four to five hundred residential units = subsidized units per year (eighty to one hundred twenty semi-detached houses plus apartments), the calculation is quite different, and unlike ordinary voters, they were also the "customer" in designing the political product. The young family, which is sometimes even glad to be demonstrably below "higher earners" with their household income, is unfortunately only "meant" in feeling by these subsidies, but deliberately not actually.
Overfulfilling the Building Energy Act standard at the EH40 level pays off financially for individual builders with established households (for several years above the contribution assessment ceiling—so the opposite of "sufficiently poor people") and when the specific house design results in about EH43, meaning only a tiny push is needed to reach EH40.
For you, this means: honestly ask yourselves whether you belong to the intended beneficiary group or (even better: and) can afford this eco-patronage, or what "calculated pessimistically" actually remains on your heap of wealth. If you are the ones being taken for fools on balance, then save yourselves the acrobatics from the Building Energy Act to EH40. As a chief judge and chief physician, and if it only costs you the stroke of a pen to order 2 cm thicker insulation boards, then by all means take the KfW subsidy and laugh yourselves silly over poor saps like "the lower eighty million."
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Now, to the technical part of the house project:
What you should definitely get first is an architect for "Module A," see my "Housebuilding roadmap, also for you: the HOAI phase model!" With this, you make a preliminary design, with which you conduct a qualified inquiry to a handful of construction companies during the "dough rest." Normally, I then advise using this inquiry round also for "setting the course," but in your case only to a limited extent:
If your honest self-reflection shows that the circus with EH40 would pay off for you, then design the inquiry as a course-setting, so ask three timber builders and two (to three) masons. Because with EH40, timber builders usually have the edge. But because this is not always so, you let masons participate as well. "More is better" unfortunately does not apply for the inquiry round, so refrain from too many participants. Regional companies are best, but this practically mainly applies to the masons. In reality, you will not avoid supra-regional / nationwide timber builders.
If your honest self-reflection results in ignoring KfW40, then you should "build on" the shell general contractor known to your family and commission the architect for the entire two halves up to and including service phase 8, or at least up to and including service phase 7 and for service phase 8 then a construction-accompanying expert. Let the architect tender the construction and instruct him to involve the shell general contractor known to your family. An experienced tenderer will never exclude GCs (also for turnkey) and only make the list of recipients as long as necessary. So you will have a choice afterward between rarely more than five GCs and further bidders who only bid for lots of their trades.
Also, with this result (Building Energy Act instead of KfW40), you carry out the inquiry round, either as course-setting or limited to masons. From the responses, you derive how far you want to go with the architect. According to my proven scheme, question 2 is always for an offer of the house design most similar to the preliminary design used for the inquiry (catalog house, type house, promotional house—the child may have different names). If there is a convincing building proposal, you let your architect adapt it for you in cooperation with the GC. The adaptation to your plot is already done by the self-commissioned independent architect, who considered and developed it on the preliminary design.
Single independent awarding as first-time builders—especially without a professional tender base, therefore at least up to service phase 7—is an expensive experience and regularly consumes training money many times higher than the possible (and even many times higher than the hoped-for) savings potential. If you do not like the offers so far price-wise, then reduce size and/or equipment. You can generously save on frills without remorse, but not on the quality of the craftsmen. For example, equally good tiles in 60x30 cost noticeably less than 80x80, partial instead of full brick cladding often even looks more elegant, and so on.
