What did you indulge in at the house, what did you give up?

The logic still remains strange.

As if the general contractor (GU) would necessarily cut costs elsewhere just because they install triple-glazed windows. If you only look at the price at the bottom right, that can of course happen, but if you build with a GU who generally does not install crap...

What is stated in the construction service description counts and if the overall package is right...

And no, it "must" only be saved again if the provider is only concerned with delivering a cheap price. If the provider generally focuses on quality, he "does not have to."

So anyone can say whatever they want. Double glazing is nowadays only offered by providers who want to keep their house price low. Often shutters are also missing and only pine or spruce is offered as stairs, etc. Everything that is good and actually standard for many costs extra, and the initially lower house price quickly becomes relative, and you end up paying more than with a provider where these things are already standard. Anyone who saves on the base price of the windows also saves on many, many other things.

So, then it's my turn.

What we gave up:
- Basement (due to high groundwater)

What we treated ourselves to:
- Large plot of about 800 sqm in a very good location with good infrastructure and transport connections
- Double garage with basement replacement room
- Expandable attic, which is already fully insulated, clad, and finished with plaster, and therefore now serves as a "warm" basement replacement and can be used additionally as living space if needed. All the wiring is already up there as well.
- City villa with almost 200 sqm of living space, whereby we added an extra floor on both levels, so that we now have a finished ceiling height of 2.60 m
- Zero DIY (we also preferred to have painting work done by a professional company)
- 2 walk-in showers
- High-quality bathroom fixtures (washbasins on console plates, furniture, fittings, etc.)
- Oak parquet flooring in all living rooms
- Stainless steel strips in the bathrooms
- High-quality kitchen with Bora extractor
- Sliding door running inside the wall between kitchen and dining room
- Interior and exterior window sills in granite (Nero Impalla)
- Completely new furniture and lamps
- Sufficient sockets in all rooms
- Central residential ventilation system
- Gray windows (white inside), front door, garage door (with electric sectional drive)
- Oak staircase with glass balustrade
- Electric shutters
- Video intercom system
- Room air-independent fireplace
- Motor lock
- LAN/SAT in the living and control rooms
- Large utility room
- Dressing room
- 3 equivalent children's rooms each with 15 sqm of living space

Things like underfloor heating in all rooms, triple glazing, etc. are also included, but as mentioned above, I now consider them standard.

Regarding drying laundry: We will have controlled residential ventilation and the biggest problem is supposed to be dry air. The room is of course also planned as an exhaust zone.

Then I don’t understand the logic with the ceiling dryer at all anymore And yes, controlled residential ventilation often causes dry air; however, a bit of moisture in a room – especially in a utility room – does not really change much.

In my opinion, laundry belongs either outside or in a dryer. Nowadays a lot of money is invested in airtight houses and controlled residential ventilation, so wet laundry in the house is counterproductive

Triple glazing is by no means standard like all the other stuff...and if it is offered from the start at no extra cost, then as a rule of thumb that usually means the house only meets the KfW-70 values or similar standards...in other words, savings were made on the wall structure or other things.

This statement is only true if it refers to so-called budget providers!

Also, or especially, the construction companies want to make money and don’t give you anything for free, absolutely nothing...

Primarily, construction companies want to deliver good quality in order to generate satisfied customers and thus references. That they think and act economically goes without saying, otherwise they would not be able to survive in the market permanently.

Yep, bay windows are lovingly called "wall warts" by architects...
Yes, the lower third of the window is fixed glass...since we don’t open the windows anyway, the exterior appearance was more important to us...

I have been doing this job for many years, and I have never come across such a term. The highest duty of an architect is to reconcile the wishes of their clients regarding a floor plan with the regulations of the building code and development plan. Whether a bay window – by the way, you have not built a bay window in the classical sense, but a turret – is planned or not depends on many factors and is not necessarily related to meaningfulness in terms of required space. Sometimes the deciding factor is simply the additional design value.

I really wonder who you spoke to during the pre-construction phase that led you to conceive such a negative scenario – both about architects and the construction manager...

Foolish greetings

Such an image of architects – with regard to terms like Fresswarze etc. and other condescending expressions – you can get very quickly if you read a bit in the [grünen Forum]. Then the whole thing gets a certain something through the often very arrogant and condescending tone of certain gentlemen.

Yes, I know we have a tower... if we hadn't moved it to the upper floor, it would have been a bay window in the classic sense...

Before the construction, we talked to several different companies and each had its pros and cons, and in the end with all of them it was just about the amount at the bottom right... and quality was often only available at an extra cost... and as I already wrote somewhere here in the forum, there is plenty of evidence in the media, and I also count the internet among that... where builders either afterwards or even during the construction wonder why this or that is done that way... see current thread with the question about insulation

I am also aware that there are many "good" GUs out there... we would build with ours again at any time... but the majority of companies work differently... at least that's how it comes across when I read the builders’ diaries etc... but I digress...

You don’t know the term wall wart? You can also enter Fresswarze in the search engine, then you’ll find quite a lot on the topic...