Single-family house with a small footprint, attic and basement, neighbor's approval

Hello everyone, I would like to show you what has come out of several weeks of tinkering. It is still kind of "sketched out," but this is probably the direction it will take. Nevertheless, I am naturally interested in where you see weaknesses and room for improvement. Edit: since the whole thing is unfortunately a bit pale: On the ground floor, there is a study in front of the kitchen. On the other side, we have a toilet, cloakroom, storage room, and then the stairs. The basement has 3 rooms plus the utility room/laundry. On the upper floor, we have 2 identical children's rooms, a children's bathroom, a parent area consisting of a bedroom and its own bathroom. An attic studio is obsolete since we have rotated the roof. The knee wall will be about 140-145 cm. Thanks and regards

The floor plans could be optimized based on your preliminary design; fundamentally, they can work. However, I would suggest revisiting the original idea of the side entrance and placing it at the location of the storage room, directly next to the stairs. The garage can be moved. The ground floor plan is then not divided, and the proximity to the garage is ensured. With a covered walkway, you can get to the car without getting wet.

The kitchen and the bathrooms need to be drawn in detail, showing the installation routing from the attic to the basement and the arrangement of the sanitary elements at a scale of 1:50/1:20; there will be some tight spots, which will likely lead to changes in the floor plan.

What are the cardinal directions? Is there already a soil report with information about the groundwater level and the requirements for waterproofing the basement structure (black tank/white tank)?

Hello W. Pickartz,

thank you very much for your feedback.

First about the cardinal directions:
Street side/house entrance = North
Garage side = West
Kitchen side = East
Back side = South

Personally, I also like a side entrance (West) because it generally opens up a narrow floor plan better, but we decided against it for two reasons:
1. The plot is narrow (13.30m), so only the legal 3m clearance remains on the right and left of the house. Therefore, the driveway and the garage are narrow. If a car is parked in front of the garage, one would have to squeeze past it to get to the front door.
2. The house is set back 5m from the street (requirement of the development plan), the neighbor’s garage adjoins our garage and is set back about 6m. We do not find it visually appealing if our garage were pushed further back compared to the neighbor’s to allow the side entrance. Also, you would come out of the house and look sideways at the dull plaster of the neighbor’s garage.

One possible option would be a 45-degree beveled house entrance on the Northwest corner (thus close to our own garage, which in turn could be flush with the neighbor’s).

Can you describe the "creaking" in more detail? Where exactly do you see problems? And do you mean that things are complicated to solve or even impossible?

There is no soil survey from our parcel. However, there are no problems with groundwater in this area. The soil is clayey, the excavation later cannot be used for filling/compacting. The various providers generally pour basements from concrete resembling a white tank. The basement was estimated several times at about 40,000 EUR.

Thanks again and best regards

I am confused: I understood it to mean that the roof has to be planned the other way around. I had sat down to draw it back then, but failed because of the roof. Well, if you enter narrow plot in Google, house ideas come up. My drawing can be compared to the Weberhaus Sunshine 110... I would also favor a side entrance and allow the little house 4 meters of space at the front boundary. Then, thanks to the neighbor's garage, a nice sheltered courtyard can also be created in front of the garage.

The installation guidance (heating, sanitation, electrical, ventilation) should preferably be planned as realistically as possible from the beginning so that later, during the workshop and detailed planning, the floor plan concept does not have to be questioned again because the necessary space, e.g. for installation walls, boxing, in short: for concealed horizontal and vertical conduit routing, has not been taken into account.

You have, for example, 2 downpipes that need to be joined together under the ceiling in the basement and connected to the house drainage in the utility room. The downpipe for the bathrooms on the upper floor runs right through the kitchen line. How should, for example, the bathtub connect to it or the possibly floor-level shower(s) that either have a shower channel in the screed (construction height approx. 90mm minimum), are installed in an installation wall, or drain vertically, but then sit as a recess in the raw ceiling and possibly hang as boxing under the ceiling (unacceptable)?

The technically flawless solution should not be left to the "specialist company" or the construction contractor. Complaints up to and including construction defects are then the rule. In addition, the size and distances of sanitary fixtures should be precisely entered in the floor plan according to the referenced regulations or according to personal needs in single-family home construction. Sometimes, with more detailed planning on a large scale, centimeters are missing at a crucial point and lead to possibly unsightly forced situations or makeshift solutions on the construction site.

For construction planning, a soil survey is a prerequisite (client’s task). The building waterproofing is designed accordingly; the structural engineer requires the information for foundation planning, and any possible soil loads are mentioned therein. The design water level should also be clearly specified in it, as well as an infiltration coefficient for the soil permeability, if drainage water is to be infiltrated. In your region, the soil must also be examined for remnants from WW II (checking for ordnance contamination).

I also see no immediate necessity to accept the neighbor's incidental decision as a specification in the garage layout. You may also have parking spaces in front of the house due to the 5m distance from the property boundary. I would see more advantages in a side entrance than disadvantages.

I am confused: I thought that the roof had to be planned the other way around. I had sat down to draw it back then, but failed because of the roof. Well, if you enter narrow plot in Google, house ideas come up. My drawing can be compared with the Weberhaus Sunshine 110... I would also favor a side entrance and allow 4 meters of space at the front of the little house at the boundary. Because of the neighbor’s garage, a nice protected courtyard can also be created in front of the garage.

Maybe we misunderstood each other or I did not express myself precisely. We wanted to definitely place the roof the other way around to create an attic studio because we thought we needed this space. I have already googled many narrow floor plans. None really fit, which was mostly due to the staircase. Now it has become apparent that the rooms desired in the upper floor can actually all be accommodated on the level below. What exactly do you mean by 4 meters of space at the boundary? We must mandatorily keep 5 meters distance to the front (north). Since all others have kept this distance and we are the last ones to build there, no exception will be granted to us, we have already clarified that. I understand that pushing the garage back protects the area in front of it. However, we don’t like that at all.

The routing of installations (heating, sanitation, electricity, ventilation) should ideally be planned as realistically as possible from the beginning so that later, during the construction and detailed planning, the floor plan concept will not have to be questioned again because the necessary space, e.g. for installation walls, boxing, in short: for concealed horizontal and vertical routing of pipes, has not been taken into account.

I also see no immediate compulsion to accept the neighbor’s incidental decision regarding the garage arrangement as a guideline. You possibly also have parking spaces in front of the house due to the 5m distance to the property boundary. I would see more advantages in a side entrance than disadvantages.

I can at least say that the required routes from the basement to the roof for the chimney as well as the heating boiler work. Regarding the other lines, I have not yet gone into such detail, but so far I have not heard any objections that something might not fit.

The matter of the house entrance does indeed still occupy me a bit; here I will try out variants with the 45-degree chamfered entrance on the northwest corner as well as a side entrance between the guest toilet and the stairs.

I will also pick up the keyword "concealed horizontal and vertical routing of pipes" and inform myself about it.

Thank you both very much for your feedback!