Raising the threshold - Addendum or new building application?

Hello everyone,

we are in the middle of construction. The basement is finished, the interior walls on the ground floor as well, and next week the ground floor ceiling will be installed.

There is no development plan and there are already 2.5-story houses under construction in the area.
If we now want to raise the knee wall, does a completely new building application have to be submitted, or is an addendum with new drawings and new structural calculations sufficient?

It was always said and assumed to be a 1m knee wall.. Now it has turned out that we will get none or only 10 cm, unfortunately we did not notice this earlier. ops: (I know, our own fault...)

A meeting with the construction company will only take place on Tuesday.

I am already completely desperate because with such a knee wall, the entire furniture planning no longer fits.

That is naturally tough. But the construction company should be able to answer that completely for you. However, it will probably be more expensive because an increased threshold also requires replanning.

Hello Isabella,

Hello everyone,

we are in the middle of construction. The basement is finished, interior walls on the ground floor as well, and next week the ground floor ceiling is coming ... There is no development plan and there are already 2.5-story houses in the construction area. If we now want to raise the knee wall, do we have to submit a completely new building application or is an addendum with new drawings and new static calculations sufficient?

It was always talked about and assumed that there would be a 1m knee wall.. Now it turns out that we will get none at all or only 10 cm, unfortunately we didn't notice this before. ops: (I know, it's my own fault...)

This is hard for me to understand. You signed the building application 3, if not 4 times; at least you should have sent your architect in with authorized plans, right?

As a rule, an addendum to the building application with the corresponding attachments should be sufficient. However, I see another problem possibly approaching you here. More than ⅓ of the house body is already standing, which also means that the static calculations are based on the approved building application. You don’t just want to add “one row of bricks,” but 90 cm in total. So it remains to be checked whether the previous measures from the static calculations can absorb this additional weight.

Rhenish regards

Hello Isabella,


That is hard for me to understand. You signed the building application 3, if not 4 times; at least you sent your architect into the process with authorized plans?

As a rule, an amendment to the building application with the corresponding attachments should suffice. However, I possibly see a different problem coming your way. More than ⅓ of the house structure is already built, which also means that the structural calculations are based on the approved building application. You don’t just want to add "1 row of bricks", but 90 cm in total. So it remains to be checked whether the previous measures from the structural calculations can absorb this additional weight.

Rhenish greetings

Hello Building Expert,

yes, even for me it is hard to understand, we checked and drew floor plans for weeks, but it still went through and was "misread". 1m is registered, but not at the knee wall, rather starting at the height where the actual 1m begins.

I can hardly sleep anymore because I keep blaming myself.

We will go to the building authority tomorrow to ask to what extent any possibility still exists at this point in time. After that, we have a meeting with our construction company.

What additional costs might arise then? For example, for a new site plan and structural calculations? Apart from the construction work itself!?

Thank you very much for your help.

We "back then" rescheduled a roof window at short notice and submitted a supplementary request. It cost us about 30,- for the new approval and about 250,- for the changed planning from the architect. The structural analysis was partially recalculated, which was kindly covered by the house builder. So it was no problem FOR US. But of course, it can be different in your case. Just ask politely

And? What does the building authority say?