Spinning mill or feasible? Buy and renovate an old farmhouse

A complete renovation costing €500/m² is not feasible, not as a DIY project within one year. But if you have many friends who are craftsmen, you can start calculating realistically what you can accomplish yourselves, which external services you definitely want to use, and how long that will take. I would blindly guess that as a tenured teacher you can finance more than €50-60k renovation plus purchase price.

What hasn't been mentioned so far: 50-60000, that alone will soon cost the heating including removal and disposal of the old one - unless you do some kind of minimal concept and a lot of that in EL. Windows and front door surely also need to be replaced, that costs another 20k€. Without knowing the house, you can say that in 90% of cases the roof and roof insulation need to be redone, that's another 20-50k€. Nothing has been made livable yet, the first 100k€ are already gone, and you can hardly do EL there.

The entire interior construction, kitchen, bathrooms, walls, floors can then be done with own labor for 50-60000.

Additionally: friends of my parents renovated a farmhouse in EL (leave from job over 2 years) (vor 15 Jahren oder so). But that was, I think, 400 sqm. Anyway, whenever someone in the family had the idea to buy and renovate an old house, the known examples were mentioned: "they thought back then that everything could be done with 100k€, in the end it cost over half a million" and that was 15 years ago...

I don't think a complete renovation for 500€/m² is feasible, not as DIY within a year.

Then I'll just claim that it is possible.

Important factor: living close to the construction site and no children. With not too much work for a living (max 40 hours/week + short commute) and spending your annual vacation on the construction site, it can be done... if you know what you're doing.

The heating and installation is actually always the most critical item in such projects, because even as an experienced DIYer you rarely have the experience and confidence in planning, laying, and properly pressure-testing pipes and the system. We paid just under 20k for heating + pipes + radiators (underfloor heating in the kitchen and bathroom + 12 radiators in the house) + water pipes from the house connection. Without DIY effort, everything by the sanitary installer.

Our place has just under 140m² and we paid about 20k Euros for renewing plaster, all new floors, 80m² new dry screed, basement ceiling insulation (60m²), bathroom tiles, bathroom ceramics and fixtures, kitchen electrical appliances and new countertops, paint, complete new electrics including fuse box, all DIY (except for connection and approval of the fuse box by an electrician).

Installing new windows without DIY (55 m² window area, triple glazed, laminated, plastic) was 14k.

We needed about 6 months every weekend and 3 weeks of vacation, always the two of us (my father and I). Then we moved in and for the remaining work, like new wooden terrace (1200€), baseboards and trim in the kitchen, digging out and waterproofing the basement from the outside (3000€ - including earthworks by a landscaping gardener) plus a lot of garden work and miscellaneous little things, we needed another year - but we only worked on those when time allowed.

Renovating old houses is not difficult (craft-wise). Plastering walls, laying dry screed, laying electrical cables, installing roof insulation—these are all just crafts, no rocket science! You just have to think about what you're doing and what effects which material has or how it adheres to which surface. But there's information on everything on the internet.

...Now there would be an old farmhouse here that we would also like to take a look at. The barns and garages are in good condition, but the house is in great need of renovation, baths, walls, and floors would have to be renovated and there is only a stove heating system. The building fabric is probably quite good.
That means you would have to install a completely new heating system and then redo the walls and lay floors everywhere. I don’t know about the insulation yet...

If you are ready to live on a construction site for the next three to four years: do it!
The heating system does not necessarily have to be replaced immediately – nowadays people have simply become too lazy to take care of stoves. Carrying coal, disposing of ashes, warming up the place in the morning, etc.
The comfort of modern heating systems is addictive!

I might offend some now, but I absolutely think it’s a bad idea to mess around with insulation in an old house. Especially if it was built before the First World War. Poor or no planning and use of unsuitable materials means sooner or later the death of the building. Done right, however, it also costs a lot of money.

...Although, if you have to redo the floor anyway, you might as well install underfloor heating. It doesn’t really cost more if the floor is "open" anyway...

See above.
If the house was cheap, I would simply compare the financial effort to the expected higher heating costs without "energy renovation".
Recently someone here was raving about their KfW40 house.
For what he paid extra for it (compared to the Energy Saving Ordinance requirements), I can heat my place for over 30 years.

With this I just want to express that insulating for the sake of insulating is by no means effective and should be well considered if it is not necessary.

The heating does not necessarily have to be replaced immediately - people nowadays have simply become too lazy to take care of stoves. Hauling coal, disposing of ash, warming up the place in the morning, etc. etc.

Hand on heart: Would you feel like doing that?

My parents' house is 200 years old and a (gas) heating system was only installed there sometime in the middle of the last century - and has since been replaced several times.
However, nothing has been botched because the insulation is still at least partly very questionable compared to today's standards/expectations.

What hasn’t been mentioned yet:
50-60000, that alone will soon cost the heating system including removal and disposal of the old one – unless you do some kind of minimal concept and a lot of it with EL.
Windows and the front door will surely also need to be replaced, that’s another 20k€.
Without knowing the house, one can say that in 90% of cases the roof and roof insulation need to be redone, that’s another 20-50k€.
That’s not even making the house habitable yet, the first 100k€ already gone, and you can hardly do EL there.

Hi Lumpi,
no matter what you’ll have to buy somewhere sometime. Please, please get in touch with me. I’ll sell it to you!

50k for a heating system...
20k for windows and front door...

Sure, you can spend that. You can do it all.
But I think Lumpi got ripped off there.

Please google what a Vaillant or Buderus heating system costs. Google what windows and interior doors cost.
Even exterior doors are available for cheap.

I don’t want to crap on you or anything... I’m just sure it doesn’t have to be as expensive as you mentioned, because I renovated myself last year. Therefore, I know the costs for windows, doors, heating, electricity, floors, and walls.

But you’re probably right that there are people who spend 50-60k for a heating system, 15k for a front door, 3k per window, 60k for a garage, 20k for a carport, 70k on a kitchen, and a measly 200k on the garden.

But none of that has to be the case. (At least I think so!).
Of course, if the OP must have the best of the best as fast as possible, then your numbers are okay.

That said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a Buderus or Vaillant (etc.)! That is very good and proven technology.

There are already very good “cheap” windows. And since the house is older, there are no big problems with installing them. Because you don’t have to worry about any ETICS or whatever.
When you watch two windows being installed in an old building, you can do the third one yourself! Likewise interior doors.

But well... everyone does as they see fit.

Lumpi, my offer stands! Get in touch when you go shopping!