Own effort - What can be sold well at the bank?

[*]Screed insulation (I'm already looking forward to it...)

For about 180 sqm, we spent around 110 hours of own labor on it. On top, 4 layers of insulation (3 cm each) and a lot of carving due to cables and ventilation pipes, and below 3 layers (4, 4 + 5 cm).

There’s probably no better work to do on your knees, warm and relatively soft, not exhausting but very time-consuming...

And every builder does it better than the screed layer or the plumber’s apprentice.

For about 180 sqm we spent about 110 hours of own work on it. Above, 4 layers of insulation (each 3 cm) and a lot of carving because of cables and ventilation pipes, and below 3 layers (4, 4 + 5 cm).

That matches exactly with my information

For about 180 sqm, we spent about 110 hours of our own labor. Upstairs, 4 layers of insulation (each 3 cm) and a lot of carving due to cables and ventilation pipes, and downstairs 3 layers (4, 4 + 5 cm).

There is probably no better work you can do on your knees, warm and relatively soft, not exhausting but very time-consuming...

And every builder does it better than the screed layer or the plumber’s apprentice.

And how much did you save (compared to individual bidding or what did the general contractor credit) after deducting material and possibly tools?

Edit: Another question: What do you think about doing the jointing of composite slabs yourself? Or does it only cost so little that it’s not worth mentioning, or is it, for whatever reason, too difficult?

So screed insulation was one of the few nice and not really strenuous tasks. I even managed it on my own.
We declared €30,000 to the bank. It was accepted without any issues. However, my husband had quite a lot of free time and the bank knew that it didn’t matter how long we took.
But to get that much value in personal contribution, you really need a lot of free time and have to be really skilled in craftsmanship. And preferably also friends/family who have skilled trades.

Hello,

interesting discussion here!
I am now completely finished and maybe I can offer a few thoughts.
I built massively and initially calculated everything in a way that I would do hardly anything myself. Since I am not completely unskilled, I then planned quite a bit of my own work and invested everything I "saved" directly into fancy stuff around the house.
In retrospect, I can say that almost everything takes longer than you think, even though my team (parents & friends) and I are not "beginners." It must be said that the execution (confirmed by the site management and other craftsmen) was quite precise and meticulous, sometimes even more thorough than some craftsmen would do.

I could certainly write 20 pages about this, but to keep it short:

- I basically had no life for 2.5 years, meaning I was busy 11 hours a day with my job and travel time, plus at least 7 hours daily on the construction site, on weekends and days off between 13 and 17 hours.
- there were a few days when follow-up trades had to wait for the completion of a specific DIY job; on those days I went from the site to the shower and straight back to the office.
- I had 3 absolutely reliable people who spent enormous amounts of hours on my construction site, for whom I now somehow owe a debt. When they start building, it’s clear that I have to give something back.

What I did to my body was certainly not healthy. Please don’t encourage anyone to copy that. Because of the little sleep over such a long time, I was not always in top shape; the consequence was a fall from the ladder, luckily nothing serious, and I was back at it 15 minutes later. Of course, you don’t even want to think about any kind of relationship with something like that; I was single, and if I had been in a relationship at the time, it certainly would not have survived the building period.

Well, what can an office worker with a knack for handiwork and like-minded friends do?
- Provided helpers for the masons and sewer connection work
- Complete electrical work (quite extensive, over 5 km of cable) cabinet, laying, wiring, satellite, network, everything. The electrician was only on site for 2 hours for acceptance
- Special concrete construction (things no company builds, requires a lot of formwork and materials)
- Installation of ventilation system, core drilling
- All preparatory work for other trades, chasing, priming, ...
- Installation of granite in many places in the house
- Building cistern, garage
- Insulation under screed
- Drywall, boxings
- Wallpapering / painting (walls and ceilings treated 10 times!) special paint
- All excavator work except excavation of the basement pit
- Installation of gravel, terrain modeling
- Outdoor facilities, wall construction, fence building, curbstones, laying large-format paving (200 m²), landscaping
- Tiling basement and garage
- Elaborate staircase with 22 linear meters of steps
- Laying floor coverings
- Fine plaster in bathrooms, basement, garage, stove
- and much more that I don’t even want to think about anymore...

Looking back, we really did an insane amount. It must be said that I operate/drive every machine and we have a lot of tools or cheap access to them. Without these possibilities most of this would not be possible, as hardly anyone has formwork material for 40 linear meters of wall and such things.

What I saved I do not know exactly, as the different opinions of those involved range between 30,000 to 50,000 (outdoor facilities were very elaborate) or even more.

I can only advise everyone not to overdo it to this extent. I am now glad I did it this way, but I wouldn’t want to do it again now.

PS: Someone wrote somewhere that it would be nonsense to do your own work on high-priced houses (like the person has enough money anyway). I cannot share that opinion. I didn’t exactly choose the cheap option, which was only possible because of the own work...

I can only say that we did it exactly the same way as angoletti1. We also carried out roughly the same work and had all the machines and equipment available or easy access to them. However, we are married and have two children; our second son was born when the foundation slab was poured. My husband started doing own work when the shell was up and also had no real life for 1 year. From 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the office and from 5 p.m. until at least midnight at the house, plus 60 minutes each way for commuting to the office. On Saturdays, he worked all day as well. Only Sundays we kept as family day throughout the entire construction phase, and that was a good decision. And now we are super proud to live in our house and to have built much of it ourselves. We are still working on it, and the garden is not finished yet, but I can safely say we saved a lot of money. We have 170 sqm of living space and 100 sqm of usable space. A house on a slope with a basement for living, pitched roof and clinker brick, a geothermal heat pump, underfloor heating throughout the whole house, floor-to-ceiling windows everywhere, and so on and so forth... In total, the house has so far cost 265,000 Euros, and I am sure that for that money, a [BU] or [GU] could never have delivered us this.