What is feasible on the existing property and budget

Not the latest planning status. The rooms roughly fit



Pictures mainly in the house pictures thread between October 17 and February 18

Thank you very much, we'll let it sink in.

A modern UG has nothing to do with a basement. The room climate, the light, the ceiling height is like a normal EG.

I already said, the OP doesn’t ask this question in this form without ulterior motives. The general contractor’s offer is too expensive, and a house with individual planning from individual trades can be, but doesn’t have to be, more expensive.

3 floors, calculated including 3 garages and such gimmicks... for that you already downgrade the flooring

We don’t even mention the 3.50m height and the lift platform that we would like to have anymore ... Although the 3rd garage or carport is a must.

2 floors, with living spaces in the basement and leaving some volume space, then it works out too. No general contractor builds you an affordable workshop, they’re there for single-family homes.

I am not sure whether you have now understood the reference height; but I think I have now understood that you previously thought it should become your floor height on the ground floor (GF) (?)

No, it should not. A common building mass limitation found in development plans, besides the square meters of the ground area (simplified as the "base slab") and the floor area (simplified as "living space"), is also the building height. Based on the model of the pitched roof house, the ridge height (peak of the gable roof) and the eaves height (height of the gutter, fictitiously assumed as "zero" at the roof overhang) are limited.

This measurement would not be defined if one did not know from where it "counts". Normally, the floor height on the ground floor is taken. Where this height is placed is easy to select on flat plots or respectively to be uniformly assumed for the whole street in absolute meters above sea level. This is not possible on hillside streets.

Then other definitions are resorted to, which, simply put, follow the principle "You first have to pull the nipple through the loop and turn it all the way up with the small crank." Or, as here, a fixed height - usually taken more or less from the middle of the plot - is assumed, which is set individually for each plot.

This method only serves to simplify the determination of the possible building heights. It is purely fictitious and does not have to be congruent with any actual level inside the house. But it is a zero reference point for you.

Assuming you follow my suggestion to set the ground floor floor height at 209.5 m: that would be a whole meter lower than the reference height of 210.5 m. Consequently, (in the example now viewed from this floor), the ridge could be at 9 m height (reference height + 8 m). According to your information, the eaves height is not limited, and with reasonable roof pitches here practically negligible; theoretically - but only so that the sentence becomes a bit longer - I would see it at "ridge height minus 1.20 m" (comparable to the wall height in a flat roof).

The number of floors and floor area are also not limited according to your information. So you can forget the previous "warnings" about not letting the basement grow too far out of the ground.

In this respect, it also relativizes that, as I said earlier, a "crack" architect is needed here. Simultaneously adhering to all height specifications is exactly what normally sorts out the “softies” among architects when it comes to hillside plots.

Regarding the knee wall, I said it is a dividing line. This can be interpreted - if you are able to do so, as here due to the practically missing eaves or knee wall limitation - in the way you intend: setting the bar so high that you can place all the windows "below the bend."

I will not repeat my opinion about exaggerated fear of roof slopes here; there should be several contributions from me available here on that topic.

The tricky task will therefore be to cleverly position the garage. Where it would be in your sketch, it would have to become a light thief for the south side: pushing it up to just below the windows of the ground floor would mean placing it deeper. But then it would become an actual retention basin and would collect the water of the entire street during heavy rain. So let's forget that option.

The planning here demands a high degree of cleverness and terrain visualization. Because the terrain will have to be followed here: I have seen no limitations of terrain modeling here - such would only be indirectly present, e.g., at which extent they would require their own permits or count into the floor space ratio. But I almost want to predict here that even thinking about terrain modeling here would be a bottomless pit because of the domino effect. So: consistently brains instead of excavators.

But: thanks to minor height restrictions (fair eaves height, no limit on number of floors, etc.), the headline question "what is feasible" (simplified) can be answered with "only money sets the limits." Other hillside builders struggle with malicious height restrictions; here one could almost think that there are knowledgeable people in the municipal council.

So far, we have assumed that the reference height can, but does not have to, match the floor height of the ground floor.
Due to the reference heights of the neighboring properties, I quickly ended up planning on embanking and the voluntary equalization of the reference height to the ground floor.
I want to be able to look from my ground floor to the ridge of the neighbor without a rigid kink. So that we avoid at all costs (well, not at all costs, but maybe with a small budget increase) the situation where our current neighbors are stuck with our rental place: 3-story block vs. bungalow...

Unlike a floor covering, the floor height can no longer be changed in a few years.
And I would actually be willing to increase the budget for the earthworks a bit.

So there were no wrong statements from our companies regarding the reference height and we can actually set the ground floor at 210.5? It was merely a recommendation from you to assume the actual terrain in the middle of the house position as the ground floor.
If we stayed with the variant "barrel without floor," reference height 210.5 = ground floor height, would then "only" the position of the earthworks remain less predictable, or would we then be moving towards unaffordable or even unfeasible? Would there be an approximate cost estimate (maybe assume the worst case, what costs would we expect for leveling to the reference height 210.5)? Are we talking about 20k more or 100k more or even far beyond?
The barrel without floor would result "only" from embanking and, consequently, a slope to be retained? Provided the excavated soil was suitable, could it be used for embanking and save on transport? Or is that too naïve? Ultimately, even less deep excavation would be required than for your recommended ground floor height of 209. Then my basement would lie 1.5 m further down and thus even below the lowest point of the property.
In this case, we definitely have the additional costs for a sewage-compatible lifting station. If we plan three stories and the basement/cellar as a living cellar but without WC and shower, this cost factor might be eliminated. In return, we could compensate a few meters of slope again.

Where can I find regulations for terrain modeling, state building code, and building law?

There are indeed no restrictions in the development plan, except for a maximum total building length of 16 m.

Regarding terrain modeling, there is only this text section in the development plan:
"For terrain modeling of the plots or to compensate for height differences along the public street boundary, slopes of up to 1:1.5 and walls up to max. 2.0 m are permitted. Along field paths, a distance of 0.5 m must be maintained from walls to the boundary."

I have not yet read your position on roof windows. We currently live in a maisonette rental apartment (built 2014) on the 2nd floor with roof windows in the bathroom, bedroom, and guest WC. The rubber sealing between the slats of the blinds is detaching. Completely on the west side.
Whole streams of condensate run down in freezing temperatures (window rebate ventilation and only double glazing; possibly a "proper" ventilation and triple glazing could help). In summer, no one dares to open the blinds and you live in darkness. Ventilation during rain is out of the question. Cleaning is a pain (but again okay compared to venetian blind slats). At a knee wall height of 1.20 m, you only see the sky. Accordingly, double casement windows are only an additional room lighting option, admittedly really great for this use, a possibility for me.


My “second home” is in the basement of my parents' house. Therefore, I am familiar with the pros and cons. What I lack is the imagination for a single-family house. The parents' house is planned as a two-family house. Because of this, I only spent my childhood on half the property since each floor has a garden. The way to the actually pretty landscaped garden was too cumbersome to use the terrace at that level. Only the rear garden area was used, where a garden shed and a terrace were subsequently created. That was not considered at the time. The view from the living area is nice, but there is no garden access there because the basement below has one... And exactly this, i.e., two completely separated garden areas, I do not want. There may be two different garden levels accessible by a walkable slope or stair steps. However, I see a maximum slope/stair of half a story and not a whole one.
But we are still at the beginning of planning. With each new day, I become more willing to compromise.


maybe you are reading along :) I can’t send PMs yet because I have too few posts. We live only a few kilometers away. If I have followed your project correctly, you still seem to be under 600k?? If that is the case, I definitely see chances to realize our dream house without many compromises, but with a budget increase.