Which task is worthwhile to do yourself?

In our rural area, the workload is not quite as intense yet. But we got quotes at least half a year in advance. Of course, when you do it yourself, you sometimes have to wait a few weeks until the person is available. We also couldn’t give a fixed start date six months in advance.

But since we did a lot ourselves, we were able to use the time for other things. I also have to say that people know each other here and you can still rely on the craftsmen. The only issue was that our tiler had to return to his home country at short notice due to a bereavement, and a new one had to be found within 3 weeks. We were lucky that a company could start at short notice (we contacted about 20 companies by phone in advance, all but one had no capacity for the next few months).

We are now at 14 months. It was guaranteed that everything would be finished by Christmas 2018. (It's about the roof of the old cellar, attic parapet retaining wall) It will probably be completed as a self-performed job. I know from several companies that since summer 18 they have not accepted any houses for 19. They don't want to lose regular customers with maintenance either, or they simply don't do it in the countryside. You don't have to freeze or sit in the dark; a house is a different level. Here the craftsmen go to Frankfurt, Munich, or to Switzerland.

Summer 18 no more houses accepted for 19

It is not so unusual for us either in terms of shell construction work. Therefore, bigger does not mean better. I have already heard from people who were told here that they could start at the beginning of 2021.

Plumbing, electrical, roofing, tiling the same

Here, individual contracts with the construction supervisor. Without him, we probably wouldn’t be in the house until this winter, if at all. It only worked because his name was mentioned. He is well known locally, and priority work is done for his clients. Müller Meier Schmidt just lose out there.

Construction supervisor is a nice Freudian slip...,smile