Possible savings in self-performed structural work

Ok, but everyone has to decide for themselves if they could manage that (-:

I definitely couldn’t, doing almost 3 months of 6-8 hours of unfamiliar physical work every day alongside work and other house chores...

So hats off to you....

It wasn’t as physically hard work as I thought. Sure, there were days when you were pretty exhausted. But overall, building a house today is no longer comparable to building a house 30 years ago or more. Our parents and their parents, etc., accomplished very different things!

However, we don’t have children yet. My parents live right next to the construction site and took care of us around the clock. "Other house chores," as you mention, were reduced to a minimum. Social contacts outside the construction site only happened on Sundays, if we even felt like it (often we just wanted peace and quiet or a few more hours on the construction site...).
It’s doable and also fun. By the way, this lasted for us 13 months.

House costs about €1600/m² instead of the estimated €2300/m². Everyone has to decide for themselves if it’s worth it. For us it was, and we would build like this again anytime (if we didn’t already have a great house we are proud of).

...that's nice if that worked for . That will happen in one out of a hundred cases. The day has 24 hours... of which you work 8, let's say, in your actual profession... and then you want to spend 8 hours on the construction site? How is that supposed to work? If you're doing "assistive work" you can only do that when the actual craftsmen are there. So you need a main job with shift work. Because at the times when the craftsmen are on the construction site, I am working myself. Aside from 8 hours of work, 8 hours on the construction site, there are 8 hours left for eating, personal hygiene, commuting to work and construction site, sleep, and other things one does. That's totally unrealistic for 99% of all people.

Then you should consider that the time the craftsman needs to take care of his helpers and instruct them means he is not doing anything else. And... even if they are manageable simple assistive tasks... usually the professional does them faster. That is not taken into account either... and... and... and...

You definitely save something with assistant labor. In some favorable situations even quite a bit. But 50,000 EUR just in working hours on the shell construction I consider insanity.

As an addition, maybe calculated the other way around... if you look at the calculations (there is a variance depending on the construction) then in the shell construction you have a total of 40 - 50% labor costs. Now take your 170,000. Of that, 40% is 68,000. If you want to save 50,000 of that, 18,000 remain for the labor costs for the specialists. You can think about how that is supposed to look. There must not be many craftsmen messing around on your shell construction for only a very short time.

That was also the first thing I thought... if I do errands, it can only be during normal working hours and not after work (also because of noise). If a couple does that without children, and both really enjoy it, okay, it might work. As soon as there are children, unrealistic. Even if my husband had been up for something like that, I would have had words for him if he hadn’t been around in everyday life for weeks and then just wanted peace and quiet on the weekend... But nice if it worked out for you, that’s great. I actually see it more as a special case.

No proper company will allow someone to assist with individual tasks. If at all, it would only be possible to take on entire trades independently.

Our shell construction is just finished and cost about 100k for around 150 sqm without a basement. Although, of course, that says little.

Friends of ours completely built their house themselves over the last 2 years. If help was needed for individual trades, they brought someone in for a few days who started and laid the foundation. Afterwards, the two of them completed everything by themselves.

Both are very skilled craftsmen and delivered a truly outstanding result. Unfortunately, hardly anyone can compare because they have contacts in all areas to obtain both materials and machines on short notice, whether in the evening, on weekends, or anytime.

According to offers, no one would have built the house for less than 300k. In the end, it cost just over 200k and countless hours of work spread over about 2 years – alongside 2 full-time jobs outside the construction industry.

If you can help outside of your working hours (is that even possible if there are no "real" craftsmen involved?), you can certainly save an amount X. However, if you sacrifice your own working time and take vacation for the shell construction, you should offset the vacation as a cost. It wasn't worth it to me. Better to do the things that can be done after working hours ==> tiling, parquet, painting, priming, sanding, outdoor facilities, fine installation of sanitary/bathrooms, suspending the ceiling if desired, etc. Oh yes, there are also other costs that should be weighed against the savings through own work. If I look at Lobster’s post where friends built their house completely themselves over two years: - Interest on loan provision - Double burden through rent or existing loan on old apartment/old house - Material cost increases are also incurred over the long period and so on.

P.S: wow the prices above for Ytong.....

In what way wow? To be fair, I should also add that we are provided with the work equipment. Otherwise, the savings would be less.