Planning a single-family house - opinions?

oh yes, what I also don’t like so much is the wall partition, because otherwise the path to the front door definitely passes completely outside your intended terrace area:


That definitely looks a bit strange and I don’t know if this wall really protects from views. You would probably have to extend it the length of the driveway.

Due to the overhang of the attic, the sunlight in the ground floor is also reduced in the summer half of the year.
Therefore, I think the south/west windows for the living/dining area shouldn’t differ much in the two versions:


Regarding the building services in the garage area, the enclosed space, which only becomes cheaper if it doesn’t have to be built with the same insulation factor as the main house, I don’t know if that’s so simple. I’m not a construction expert, I just have something like a thermal envelope in mind.

Do you already have an architect?

Hello

the location of the house on the building plot is currently planned as follows (maximizing south/west garden):



The path to the garage or front door is obviously quite long here. But since this also creates privacy (living fence along the driveway (to the right of it) and distance to the houses in the west) and we therefore get a large south garden, this is acceptable to us.

At the entrance we still need to think about some kind of privacy screen, but our primary concern is that no one walks directly from the terrace to the front door (hence the entrance in the west). The wall will probably also become a living fence (it is currently only drawn as a placeholder). The walkway to the front door is in any case on the left side of the wall/fence.

I have now marked the location of the pool in blue.

I see the fireplace under the stairs more as a problem regarding smoke extraction, but the stairs + wall are relatively wide (we rather want a discreet fireplace, about 70 to 80 cm wide).

Technical rooms and storage rooms will be planned with significantly lower insulation values, etc., since temperature fluctuations in the storage and technical rooms do not matter to me. Our planner also said that at least a roughly installed underfloor heating can be planned so that the temperature can at least be kept at about +/- 15 degrees in winter.

We do not have an architect ourselves, but we are currently still working with 2 planners from 2 construction companies. The layout is also strongly based on an existing house of relatives who carried out the entire construction project with a renowned architect.

Regards Jochen

I doubt that it is possible to place the entire structure in the top left corner. In Germany at least, there is usually the 15 m rule, i.e., no more than 15 m of the building=garage is allowed to be on the boundary. However, it might be different in Austria. Also, regarding the utility connections (gas, water, telephone, electricity, etc.) up to the technical room, that will be a long way.

I thought that the land above and to the right was non-buildable and would therefore actually want to place the larger free piece of land in that area. In summer, this area is also sufficiently sunny and in winter it saves 20 m of driveway clearing ;), which is currently about 30 m long.

The note about the thermal envelope was less about the technical room being heated and more about the connections for the house being practically outside the thermal envelope. To my knowledge, this requires additional effort.

Garage may be built on the property line with a maximum height of 3m and without windows. Therefore, skylights will be provided for these rooms.

Yes, it is correct that the north and east sides cannot be built upon. However, if we place the house to the west, then we must maintain the 3m distance on the west side (this does not matter much to me on the north and east sides) and I fear there will be too much shade during the seasons outside of summer. Especially then, one would like to make use of the maximum sunlight hours. Additionally, the path from the garage to the actual living spaces will be very long, since we still want to build the house as far north as possible because of the south garden.

Regarding the technical room: This is a good point and we will also need to coordinate this separately with the planner next time. I have now swapped the technical room with storage 2, so that this room is closer to the single-family house.

Garage may be built on the boundary with a maximum height of 3m and without windows.

Yes, but surely with a limited size?! Otherwise, someone could just put a 20-meter long and 10-meter deep garage in the corner, making an enemy of every neighbor.

With your rear terrace, you are also in the border construction zone...

I would now like to have googled the building regulations in Austria, but I can't find them quickly.
You should double-check everything before your planning is based on non-permit exempt regulations.

Regards Yvonne

Thanks for the hint and of course, the size is naturally limited (max. 15 m length). The rear terrace I still have to discuss, but it's only a nice-to-have for me anyway. Basically, the northern plot also belongs to us (Nutzgrund), but I believe the same rules regarding distance etc. apply there as well. Regards Jochen