leschaf
2022-08-30 17:38:32
- #1
Hello everyone,
In June we bought a two-family house from 1936. More about it in about financing. We are still very happy to have bought it. Our baby is coming in December and at the latest, when K2 needs their own room to sleep in, the apartment will become too small. In the meantime, we have also been on-site quite frequently and are super happy with the location. Everything from daycare to high school is within walking distance, plenty of sports clubs as well, etc.
A lot has happened since the purchase. Our financing was based on equity and a bank loan for the pure purchase; for the renovation, we wanted to obtain capital from a property sale. The sale has now gone through and brought in a little more than we had optimistically planned (365,000€ vs. 350,000€ optimistic expectation vs. 300,000€ minimal expectation). I have to say, the sale gave me more headaches than buying the new house – even though it was actually about significantly less money. Especially the news about falling prices everywhere made us somewhat uncertain and doubt whether the buyer might pull out after all. We did have several offers, including two in the same range, but the second highest bidder reacted quite sulkily to being rejected. Then we would have had to list the property again, which, due to rising costs in all areas of life since the agreement, would probably have generated less revenue for a relatively old house. Once the notary contract was signed, we finally breathed a sigh of relief.
So now it’s starting, we already have an architect with whom we have been looking at houses on and off for over 2 years. She has done all appointments and planning so far for free and has already invested a lot of time. We have already been on site with the heating engineer, electrician, and flooring people. Everyone has praised the substance and potential so far, which is very reassuring.
Here is a picture of the current actual state from the garden side:
The house was insulated from the outside in 1996 with 8cm of ETICS – otherwise, unfortunately, there have been no major energy-related measures so far – and currently, according to the energy certificate, it has a demand of about 220 kwh/m2/a, which with 187 sqm living space would mean 41,000 kwh per year. According to gas bills, however, only "around" 22,000 kwh was due in 2020 (last year occupied), with two parties each living there alone. That is still a lot, and of course we want to make something more modern out of it. However, during the heatwave, it was rather cooler in the two full floors than in our already quite cool old apartment, which for me is a good sign. The house itself has double-shell solid walls.
That means for us:
- Insulation of the top floor ceiling: The attic has a huge base area and basically covers about 80% of the finished attic. Therefore, we decided to first insulate the attic cost-effectively instead of the roof, since we will not need the area up there for the foreseeable future.
- Insulation of the basement ceiling
- Elimination of some thermal bridges
- Completely new windows and exterior doors throughout the house
The architect said before buying the house that we would certainly get down to 150 or less kwh/m2/a with this, and further optimizations would probably no longer be economical. Since then, a lot has changed with energy costs... let’s see if we will tackle something else (would you, for example, think that filling insulation between the two masonry layers could still make sense? Or does that not work with ETICS?). How do you see it – realistic assessment? Of course, I would love to get even lower, but I would like to avoid completely renovating the roof.
In addition:
- Replace pipes and lines throughout the house
- New radiators
- If it makes sense / the house is reasonably heatable: heat pump
- If heat pump: photovoltaic system (the left side of the roof in the picture faces directly south).
That’s the energy-related part. Then a few other jobs should also be done. Here is the current floor plan, which is almost the same on the ground floor and upper floor, but in both floors there is a nice passage between the two rooms on the right side of the plan with a sliding door to be preserved:
And the attic floor:
This should roughly be turned into the following:
Ground floor:
Upper floor:
Since both bathrooms need to be "redone" anyway (pictures from the inside will follow later), we move them to the front towards the street. This way we have space downstairs to open up the kitchen/dining area and upstairs the opportunity to make the bathroom a bit larger than it currently is. We currently live with a 3 sqm bathroom – it works for three people, but it’s not really comfortable :D
I work almost 100% from home, so the study will be on the ground floor. The attic floor will remain as it is in the layout. It will have my girlfriend’s work/craft room, a guest room, and we have one more room left, over which there is still some negotiation :). The nice thing is that in the upper floor, due to the steep roof, we even have higher ceilings (>2.60 m) than on the ground and first floors (2.55 m) and only very little slant (pictures will follow).
Old wooden floorboards are hidden under several layers of flooring throughout the house. Fortunately, in no case are they glued down, but only laid, so we have already looked underneath everywhere with the flooring specialist and the condition was considered good. So they will only be restored! This is also a reason why we don’t want to install underfloor heating – that would involve a whole chain reaction: the floorboards would no longer be usable (too thick boards that would probably break when removed), the doors wouldn’t fit anymore (which we also only want to refurbish/paint), as well as the frames, etc. However, underfloor heating will probably go into the bathroom upstairs. The indoor staircase is also a really beautiful old wooden staircase, which was hidden under carpet and will also only be restored where necessary.
The architect’s initial cost estimate is 270,000€ for all measures (without photovoltaic). The three craftsmen who have already been there confirmed her rough calculation. Next week structural engineers and window installers will come, we’re curious :)
Current worries:
- Will we reach an energy level that allows a heat pump to be reasonably economical (we do have a lot of roof area for photovoltaic)?
- Does the rest of the cost estimate fit?
- What surprises await us?
- When will it be finished? Target is early summer next year...
We look forward to your feedback!
In June we bought a two-family house from 1936. More about it in about financing. We are still very happy to have bought it. Our baby is coming in December and at the latest, when K2 needs their own room to sleep in, the apartment will become too small. In the meantime, we have also been on-site quite frequently and are super happy with the location. Everything from daycare to high school is within walking distance, plenty of sports clubs as well, etc.
A lot has happened since the purchase. Our financing was based on equity and a bank loan for the pure purchase; for the renovation, we wanted to obtain capital from a property sale. The sale has now gone through and brought in a little more than we had optimistically planned (365,000€ vs. 350,000€ optimistic expectation vs. 300,000€ minimal expectation). I have to say, the sale gave me more headaches than buying the new house – even though it was actually about significantly less money. Especially the news about falling prices everywhere made us somewhat uncertain and doubt whether the buyer might pull out after all. We did have several offers, including two in the same range, but the second highest bidder reacted quite sulkily to being rejected. Then we would have had to list the property again, which, due to rising costs in all areas of life since the agreement, would probably have generated less revenue for a relatively old house. Once the notary contract was signed, we finally breathed a sigh of relief.
So now it’s starting, we already have an architect with whom we have been looking at houses on and off for over 2 years. She has done all appointments and planning so far for free and has already invested a lot of time. We have already been on site with the heating engineer, electrician, and flooring people. Everyone has praised the substance and potential so far, which is very reassuring.
Here is a picture of the current actual state from the garden side:
The house was insulated from the outside in 1996 with 8cm of ETICS – otherwise, unfortunately, there have been no major energy-related measures so far – and currently, according to the energy certificate, it has a demand of about 220 kwh/m2/a, which with 187 sqm living space would mean 41,000 kwh per year. According to gas bills, however, only "around" 22,000 kwh was due in 2020 (last year occupied), with two parties each living there alone. That is still a lot, and of course we want to make something more modern out of it. However, during the heatwave, it was rather cooler in the two full floors than in our already quite cool old apartment, which for me is a good sign. The house itself has double-shell solid walls.
That means for us:
- Insulation of the top floor ceiling: The attic has a huge base area and basically covers about 80% of the finished attic. Therefore, we decided to first insulate the attic cost-effectively instead of the roof, since we will not need the area up there for the foreseeable future.
- Insulation of the basement ceiling
- Elimination of some thermal bridges
- Completely new windows and exterior doors throughout the house
The architect said before buying the house that we would certainly get down to 150 or less kwh/m2/a with this, and further optimizations would probably no longer be economical. Since then, a lot has changed with energy costs... let’s see if we will tackle something else (would you, for example, think that filling insulation between the two masonry layers could still make sense? Or does that not work with ETICS?). How do you see it – realistic assessment? Of course, I would love to get even lower, but I would like to avoid completely renovating the roof.
In addition:
- Replace pipes and lines throughout the house
- New radiators
- If it makes sense / the house is reasonably heatable: heat pump
- If heat pump: photovoltaic system (the left side of the roof in the picture faces directly south).
That’s the energy-related part. Then a few other jobs should also be done. Here is the current floor plan, which is almost the same on the ground floor and upper floor, but in both floors there is a nice passage between the two rooms on the right side of the plan with a sliding door to be preserved:
And the attic floor:
This should roughly be turned into the following:
Ground floor:
Upper floor:
Since both bathrooms need to be "redone" anyway (pictures from the inside will follow later), we move them to the front towards the street. This way we have space downstairs to open up the kitchen/dining area and upstairs the opportunity to make the bathroom a bit larger than it currently is. We currently live with a 3 sqm bathroom – it works for three people, but it’s not really comfortable :D
I work almost 100% from home, so the study will be on the ground floor. The attic floor will remain as it is in the layout. It will have my girlfriend’s work/craft room, a guest room, and we have one more room left, over which there is still some negotiation :). The nice thing is that in the upper floor, due to the steep roof, we even have higher ceilings (>2.60 m) than on the ground and first floors (2.55 m) and only very little slant (pictures will follow).
Old wooden floorboards are hidden under several layers of flooring throughout the house. Fortunately, in no case are they glued down, but only laid, so we have already looked underneath everywhere with the flooring specialist and the condition was considered good. So they will only be restored! This is also a reason why we don’t want to install underfloor heating – that would involve a whole chain reaction: the floorboards would no longer be usable (too thick boards that would probably break when removed), the doors wouldn’t fit anymore (which we also only want to refurbish/paint), as well as the frames, etc. However, underfloor heating will probably go into the bathroom upstairs. The indoor staircase is also a really beautiful old wooden staircase, which was hidden under carpet and will also only be restored where necessary.
The architect’s initial cost estimate is 270,000€ for all measures (without photovoltaic). The three craftsmen who have already been there confirmed her rough calculation. Next week structural engineers and window installers will come, we’re curious :)
Current worries:
- Will we reach an energy level that allows a heat pump to be reasonably economical (we do have a lot of roof area for photovoltaic)?
- Does the rest of the cost estimate fit?
- What surprises await us?
- When will it be finished? Target is early summer next year...
We look forward to your feedback!