Diary of a house build near Munich

@Grazzenger - you're a landscape architect? My yard needs some help - we have lots of bushes and whatnot but they just don't fit together (the former owners went a little crazy with the bamboo).

Let'em grow big and tall, then cut'em down, chop'em up and make bamboo kitchen utensils, to sell

They are building the walls this week - just hoping the weather holds a bit longer. All seems to be ticking along OK at the moment.

Looking good! Are you going to get the roof on before the winter?

We had a successful meeting with the town planners and listed buildings official on tuesday - they've agreed to what we want to do so just need to get the last bit of structural engineer plans to them and we're sorted.

If weather holds they should have the roof on and completed within 3 weeks.

As an aside my wife popped down with some crates of beer, soft drinks etc today for the brickies. Site foreman said that beer on site is now a big "no no" 'cos of driving and insurance issues - please do not bring again 'cos it tempts the boys. So the beer is strictly for taking home now!!

i think that calls for a resounding bingo!! (if you were drinking more than one beer a month at the moment!)

No - the beer is for the boys to take home! We still let them keep it of course.

I think I consumed my monthly ration on Tuesday evening - I even forgot to eat at all.

so instead of drinking on the job, they'll get leathered at home and arrive pissed in the morning instead!!! mwahahaha

pulled that 'several beers and no food' stunt last night, doh! not having the most productive of days today. still, lunchtime now, perhaps some more food will finally settle my stomach and head.

looks like they are shifting along on your house now. when is the scheduled completion date?

Completion date? Dunno - nothing actually scheduled but they are not messing about - getting on with it.

Rough guesstimate is May?

Update shots. Final one is them digging up the complete road to lay our gas pipe!

This from today. Roof going onto ground floor.

Men making a mess of the road:

Actually the picture below is about 10 days old, and they have since added the wood beams for the roof - so tonight we are having the typical "roof party" thingie. Not sure what this involves but sounds like we take the builders down the pub etc.

They will tile the roof if they get a couple of fair days, and then in mid-Jan the windows should arrive. Once roof and windows are in then in theory they can continue internally. But not expecting great progress through Jan and Feb really.

I reckon moving in date is around June, but could be earlier if lucky. Obviously we are not building at an ideal time of the year, but it is better than hanging around another 6 months.

I've seen that 'roof thingy party' on TV (all those building shows), and they actually do it onsite with some champagne/sect and hang something on the roof. OK, sorry I can't be more specific than that.

Roof Party went OK. They tied a small tree to the scaffolding, the roofer yakked on in German and threw wine glasses from the top, then we bought them all dinner and beers. All very quaint etc.

Obviously project is now not running. If weather clears for a few days they will lay the roof tiles, and regardless of weather they will fit the windows this month when they arrive.

My father-in-law is moaning about some beam not lining up with the edge of the wall and the architect says "dont worry". Some of the cabling has been placed in the wrong places and architect says "dont worry".

On the 1st floor we were only allowed to build 66% of the floor space as on the ground floor, so only 3 bed and 1 bath. Our own bedroom is too small really, but has an ensuite "changing room" which is pretty big - so the bedroom will literally be just that and no space for anything else at all. All kinda complicated by the roof lines etc.

But on the plus side the cellar is huge and my "boys room" is big enough to fill with plenty of toys. Anyone recommend any sit-in race car simulators

Have you considered an indoor firing range Mr. English ?

Or have the placed cabled up with Cat5e/Cat6 for a home network..
It's better to get it installed before the floors/walls are closed up..

Trust me - not only is it Cat 7 networked to every room including kitchen and bathroom - it will have a distribution panel and server in the basement to link all the stuff together. No keys - front door will use facial recognition software.

(actually I made the last bit up, although you get the idea).

Cat7 is over rated/priced.. GigE will work just fine with Cat5E Don't spend more than you need too
You could run fiber for the price of Cat7 cable/xtras.. I can even get you the mini fiber-Cat5 wall switchs.
You you would like to place a thin client in each room check out The JackPC. I can get this and other stuff at a discount if you are intrested.

That JackPC looks pretty interesting! Although the truth is I am not short on space for real PC's and they are so cheap these days it is a non-event. There would be no cost savings by getting JackPC's.

But as a tekkie man I do have a constant issue. I would like to be able to work at home and in the office as I wish. Sounds easy enough huh? Problem is I don't want to be running 2 separate PC's as I do now, loading software twice, trying to remember to copy files across, etc etc.

I did consider a removable hard drive, but you still get dramas when swapping between machines (different internet connections, different printers etc) that makes XP keep trying to reload stuff all the time.

Is the only solution to have a laptop with 2 docking stations? I cannot work from a laptop keyboard, or laptop monitor - so it would only be a glorified portable hard drive, and yet they run slower (slower disk drives to save power) and cost loads more etc.

Or should I set up the two machines so that they ONLY have basic operating sytems on the main hard drive and EVERYTHING else on a 2nd removable drive (can still see this ending in tears?).

Three words for your boys' room JE - Sega Rally 2.

That's all you need to know.

Psst... wanna buy a satellite dish...??

are you having a bondage/sm room in the basement?

Nahhhh. Too predictable and just soooooooo 80's.

@ Grinner: Psst, I gotta dish you can have for free!
@ JE: I do hope there will be a dartboard and a pool table.

@sarabyrd -

Pooltable - check
Dartboard - check
Table Footbal - check
Gamepod Driving Simulator - check (might need 2 of these)
Xbox connected to Plasma - check

Topsy just reminded me. The world's slowest house build is still continuing. As you will all have noticed it has been a bitch of winter. They have been waiting for 2 clear days above freezing to lay the roof tiles, and this just hasn't happened!!!

Windows are in, first fittings (electrics and plumbing) are in. Tiles are now on. Next stage is plasterer (he needs warmer weather!!!), then underfloor heating, and then they lay the floor screed which needs to dry for 6 weeks (unreal). So sounds like July moving in to me.

Picture of underfloor heating being laid:

And some more progress shots. They have laid the floor screed, so must now wait another 2-3 weeks until they can lay the tiles and do further internal work. That said it is pretty much all there, windows are in, roof tiles are on - next is tiling on ground floor and cellar, tiling bathrooms, fit kitchen, doors, external decoration, fireplace and stuff like that.

No dramas so far to be honest. German workers have been excellent so far, architect has kept things moving nicely - only the bad winter that really slowed things up. I think should be finished mid-late June.

Overall at this stage I would say NOT to be scared of building over here. German builders are much more professional than their UK versions - always turn up on site, work hard, do not cause problems or aggro etc.
That is my experience anyway!

Housebuilding is cheap at the moment over here, and I saw in the Sunday Times that there are new UK funds being setup purely to invest into GERMAN property as it is looking like good value (and rental return is higher than the cost of funding etc).

I'll swap you your half built house for a paperclip.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4918184.stm

the house looks fab, JE

Any particular reason why the underground heating is done in such a way (funny cicrlar shapes)? They are water pipes right ? Will they be set in concrete or under wooden floors . What kind of temperatures of water or oil can you pass in them ?

- thanks Topsy, shame that the new TT system is now pointing out that it has been built in the arse end of nowhere! But hopefully I will be a comfortable hermit.


The first picture was before the concrete went down, then you can see on the next photos AFTER the concrete has been laid on top. They are indeed water pipes (heated from gas boiler in the cellar), and I think the idea is just to spread the heat roughly evenly through the concrete.

No idea what temperature the actual water runs, but you can usually "feel" the heat coming through on underfloor systems with your bare feet. As it happens we have also been looking into adapting the system so that it runs cold water in summer - this would technically work to cool a house down.

However we have not installed this as we also have one of these new "air exchange" systems. The idea is that it can recirculate all the air in the house every 4 hours with fresh from outside. There is a heat exchanger that "sucks" any warmth out before changing for fresh air. So the idea is that you can keep the windows shut (keeps flys and warm air out in summer), plus there is a further heat exchanger sunk into the garden earth that will "cool" the air by a few degrees in summer as well. But it is not air-conditioning as such.

In theory the air exchanger not only provides fresh air, but also filters out particles so the house "should" be less dusty. Humans constantly shed skin so dust is actually produced inside a house!

I am no "dust" or "fresh air" crank but the problem is when building your own house, as some of you will hopefully discover (rather than purchasing), you can't help getting drawn into fitting the latest gadgets because of course it will always be "too late" to add these later.

So it is a kinda "hidden cost" I would say when comparing building to buying - it is very easy to talk yourself into the latest stuff. For instance I think the glass is some special insulated gear or something.

Hey JE - what kind of flooring are you putting down over the heating system coils? We have natural stone floors and, let me tell you, they are like ice-cubes in the winter (if you don't have the heat on) but are very cool in the summer. In fact, the whole house stays much cooler than you would think in the summer. Of course, we have some very strategically placed trees that really block out most of the sun over the winter garden so it stays cooler.

Ground floor is tiles, stairs are tiles, most of the cellar is tiles except the guest room and my boys room which will be carpet. Then carpet upstairs in bedrooms.

We quite like the european leaning towards tiled floors - easier to keep clean, and you can break stuff up with rugs if you fancy.

I've got tiled floors with underfloor heating, in my case some sort of electric matting and it is excellent. The only drawback is that you have to have the heating running all the time, no point in turning it off or down at night because it takes forever to heat the tiles up again the next day.

Exactly, Allershausen. It takes forever to heat them up. There is no such thing as 'a warm house in an hour' with this stuff.

BTW, at home today and listening to the workers setting up the scaffolding around our house. Time to get the facade fixed and the whole house will be repainted with a slightly lighter color this time around. The darker color (it's a terracotta color) is supposedly bad when it comes to heating up and cooling down - more susceptible to cracks - which is what happened in our just 5 year old house. Luckily, the original builders are making good on the warrantee.

Agreed. Underfloor heating is certainly slow to get going, but I think it is a big advantage not to have ugly radiators that get in the way of furniture positioning etc. Also I like the idea that the heat is spread evenly rather than literally "radiating" from certain points.

Talking of tiled floors and breaking things up - my flat has stone floors and I've noticed that you only drop things on them once. As you point out, easy to sweep the bits up.

I'm a big fan of underfloor heating in the bathroom at least (where the effect is relatively immediate)

JE ref the shapes of the heating pipes...perhaps the plumber used to work for the met office

Ref your IT issue, why don't you get a usb removable HD, just put your files on it, no other stuff.
That way you can take your work around with you and not have to worry about operating system, printers etc. as long as you leave all that stuff (Operating system & applications) on your original hard drive(s).

Finally, back on topic, would you use you builder again ?, where is he based and how far does he (will he) travel to work ?

R & P

USB removal HD - thanks but not really the answer. My #1 most important application is email. I could run Outlook files on the USB but could get messy, slower etc (and I dont want a remote Gmail type solution either). I think a laptop is the answer for me.

Home Automation?
I happened to be at the Lighting & Home Automation Messe in Frankfurt yesterday. I popped into the Home Automation part at one stage - but frankly all that stuff leaves me cold these days! I don't want a colour LCD thingie to run my bath for me, or adjust the lighting exactly like it was yesterday. I love technology and gadgets but all that stuff seems a bit pointless frankly.

The exceptions are a multi-room stereo that plays Mp3 like http://www.sonos.com and fingerprint entry to the house (will be great with my 5 year old and 9 year old - no keys to lose).

I wouldn't want my house secured by fingerprint, not just yet anyway. See here.

sqb27 - I live in an area where people leave ignition keys in their cars. If they wanna bust in my house it won't be by using all that clever Japanese cryptography stuff.

@JE - hmmmm... now where did you say you lived?

Not too eager pike, they also burn strangers and display the charred bones at the village gate.

Finally this thing has got to the unpleasant stage.

Wife took me out this morning to look at carpet and work surfaces. I understand that the human eye can differentiate around 10 million different colours, although I am pretty sure I viewed more than that number of variations of "light blue".

Needless to say we finally ended up with some green shit for the bedrooms, but being a real man I of course said it was lovely.

I would have said it matched her eyes if it could have got my out the shop any quicker, although again being a proper man I'm not sure her eyes are actually green so better to play safe when you have been taken hostage I think.

Cannot tell you how much I loathe shopping (unless it is for motorbikes, hand guns etc).

Unpleasant? Have you designed the kitchen already? I mean, really designed it? Just wait... (evil laugh)

Oh yeah kitchen is 100% designed, done and dusted. Just having a bit of a do-dah about the work surface.

We reached a "compromise" on everything else that I disagreed about. The compromise is that we are doing it her way.

This includes some bloody silly machine for steaming vegetables I don't want. And a coffee machine (at I don't know what cost) that I don't want, and finally a combined oven and microwave which I think is a dumb and potentially inconvenient scheme.

But hey - all 3 things match and that's the important thing people.