Our Biggest Mistakes Building a House in Germany
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- Опубликовано: 3 июл 2024
- You live... You learn... and then, you make a RUclips Video about it. In this video, we sit down and discuss the top 8 mistakes we made when building a house in Germany and what we would have done differently.
If you are interested in building a home in Germany, buying a house in Germany, are interested in German residential construction, or simply curious what a German hoise looks like.... we hope you enjoy this personal look into our experience.
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Episode 112 | #germany #usa #family #construction #fertigbau #homeconstruction #homebuildingjourney #homebuilding #homebuilder #residential #residentialproperty #homebuying #germanhouse #culturalcomparison #urbandesign #expatlife #movingabroad #americaningermany #america #livingabroad #sprint202307 | Filmed June 29th, 2023
Jump to Your Favorite Part 👌:
00:00 Intro
01:15 Skeletons in our Closet
05:33 Don't be Shocked
08:07 A Hack Job
09:34 They Ran Into Our House
11:37 Jonathan Hates This the Most
13:45 Ashton Hates This the Most
15:54 This is the Funniest Mistake
18:26 The Cultural Mistake
21:43 Your Feedback
22:46 Bloopers
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When our electrician showed us the plan for the outlets I said „ok, now triple the number and we‘re good.“ Everybody said „Why would you need 24 outlets in the living room and 15 in the kitchen?“ Never regretted this decision and I don’t use a single extension cord in the hole house.
I live in an older house and there are ONLY 4 outlets in our living room!!!
Back in 1970 when the house was built and there weren't that many electrical appliances, this may have been sufficient; today each has a multiple socket strip connected to it. A cable salad!
You can't have too few outlets ;) My wife said, are you crazy with so many outlets. Now she is satisfied, but sometimes it could be two or three more.
I have 8x power strips in my 3 outlets in the living room, and another one on an extension cord from a different circuit. It is enough (so far)
@@carstenlechte It might be enough. But I advise you to rethink that approach. Daisychaining power strips is a fire hazard.
@@asmodon No worries, I am not daisychaining. 1 strip per outlet and staying well below the max power rating.
"You can never have too much storage" = First law of logistics: Every warehouse gets full.
So if you would have more storage you'd still run out of space ;)
I know what you mean, but when I moved some years ago into a bigger apartment with a pantry and a kind of walk in closet, it really become much easier. And if I fill up the space, it is much easier to get rid of some things, because I don't have to get rid of things I actually want to keep, usually I just get rid of junk I don't use anyway. Your theory is absolutely true when it comes to my closet though, lol, I definitely have an issue there....
I sort of have the opposite problem. I can't imagine how people end up with so much stuff.
I had a meeting with the electrician yesterday. He asked 3X why do you need 50 network plugs in the house and fiber down to the cellar 😂This is the 2nd home we build and never regreted any network plug or electrical outlet
Hallo Ashton, hallo Jonathan, ihr könnt beide sehr stolz sein, auf das, was ihr hier erreicht habt. In schwierigen Zeiten ein Haus zu bauen, ihr beide in Vollzeit berufstätig, mit Kleinkind, schwanger - das ist schon echt eine tolle Leistung. Für viele Deutsche wäre das schon eine enorme Herausforderung, um so mehr für euch!
Ist das Haus perfekt geworden? Mit Sicherheit nicht, aber das gibt es so gut wie nie. Ich würde heute auch viele Dinge an unserem Haus anders machen, aber es ist nun mal so, wie es ist, wie der Kölner so sagt. Ich finde die "Mängel" nicht wirklich von Bedeutung, ist so ein bisschen "meckern" auf sehr hohen Niveau. Vielleicht seid ihr hier schon ein bisschen zu deutsch geworden. :) Was ihr nicht berichtet habt, sind all die vielen unzähligen guten Entscheidungen, die ihr getroffen habt. Well done!
The first house you build from scratch definitely won't be anywhere close to perfect. Even with a person with a PhD on interior design and architecture on hand. Even full time architects screw up on their first few houses in some shape or form (literally). Outlets may be placed behind doors which won't allow them to be plugged in unless you are a member of the Cirque de Soleil gymnastics team. Or a shower stall with no floor grate outside the stall to allow spilled water to flow off. Or other such details. It's just too common. Humans simply aren't perfect.
What I have learned after buying an old house and renovationg it: you cannot decide beforehand where outlets are needed and you want to have your furniture. We had a clear opinion how everything should be arranged but half a year later we decided to move the TV and the couch and so on. Same in the kids rooms. The only thing you can do is to place outlets in a way that you can place furniture in different ways. And yes, there are always not enough outlets outside. But if you need more outlets there are some solutions where you can put cables in on the wall.
And after living more then 10 years in that house my advice is: there is no eternal solution and you are changing (kids grow up) , the world is changing (no more phone lines, no more cable TV, all LAN now, no more gas heating? EVs out of a sudden?), the only thing you can do: prepare for the change.
Or how my electrician said when we were planning the new power system 12 years ago: I will give you a 50Amp main fuse, perhaps there will be electric cars in the future. I thought that will never happen. But now we have two of them. And a PV. Battery is planned.
renovating is a whole different story in itself - well, actually not a story, a sequel of many stories... and seasons...
IN Austria, we say:
Hast zu viel Geld und bist auch dumm,
kaufst du dir ein Häusl und baust es um!
(just like I did...)
There's that saying: "Das erste Haus baust du für deinen Feind, das zweite für deinen Freund und das dritte für dich selbst."
As you found out there's a certain learning curve.
Edit: seems my dad wasn't the only one to impart that particular bit of wisdom.
Especially the first two topics are soo underestimated. Many build the features(storage, water, electricity, ...) they need and add here and there some extra stuff. You should take every possible opportunity to integrate those things into every area of your house. Connecting new areas of a house with water, electricity or Starkstrom is just insane. It's almost impossible to have too much of these things.
When I built my retirement home, I gave my builder my hand-drawn floor plan, and when he showed me the computerized version I made little footprints of all the pieces of furniture that I was bringing from the old house to make sure that they would fit. This changed the dimensions of one bedroom and the location of a couple of doors and windows - and yes, the location of outlets!
Yes get a couple of plans printed and make scale card outlines of all your furniture. car, etc. Then spend a week playing with them in different locations. ask friends around to do their locations. Then you will end up with locations for electrical sockets, pantry doors etc that could suit a number of uses.
My dad just built in dozens of additional outlets (as an electrician)
Regarding the water outlet in the front of the house: how about running a water hose from your utility(Technik) room through the garage or installing a spigot inside the garage (making the connection to the existing water lines inside the utility room, that's "just" one hole and very few pipes needed) and run the hose from your garage outside?
The garage door you got is the cheap option. Upgrading to a segmented door would not only solve the annoyances but could also save on heating in winter because they are insulated instead of this large piece of thin metal that puts your indoor garage in direct contact with the elements outside.
My advice: replace the garage door. Now! If you hate it, imagine how happy you'll be every time you see the new one - at least for quite a while. Life is too short to be constantly annoyed about something like that.
The problem with the different wood might be solved best, by adding more different wood.
My house was bought by my parents when I was a kid. This is where i grew up. The house was built with literally hundreds of almost identical ones in 1964 and by today's standards it has a lot of imperfections. Nevertheless, I like it, it's my home. I think your house will change a lot over time and little by little you will adapt it and it will fit you more and more. As all these cloned houses in my neighborhood from the mid 60's, that now look pretty individual.
Unless ... if your American roots break through. Americans have less problems parting with "their" home and move to another place than, e.g. we Germans do.
I would second that. Replace the door now! If you do it later you will lose the benefits for a long time only to spend the money anyway. And the second hand door to be sold will not increase in value if it had been used for several years.
And with your particular installation it is not sustainable to have the door infringe on the little space there is in the driveway. But as the engineer Jonathan might consider to alter the attachment of the existing door: Just put the rollers at the lower edge of the doorblade. Kind of installing the whole contraption reversed. The now horizontal track will be installed vertically in the door opening. And the arm guiding the edge gets mounted under the ceiling. All being possible only given the space is there. But with CAD you can check out the needed clearance.
Yes, replace the garage door now. The used one can be sold, you won't get all the money back, but better selling it now that it is barely used, than replacing it 5 years later and not getting almost anything back.
In the past decades more and more household appliances got electrified but the building codes didn't really keep up with this trend resulting in a shortage of electrical outlets, not only in existing but also in new homes. But now most of these appliances are moving towards wireless (battery operated) so this problem will solve itself. And regarding the missing water outlet on the front I would probably opt for a small sink in the garage. Then you would not only be able to connect a small hose from there but also have water available while tinkering in the garage and to wash your hands afterwards. It looks like your utilities room is next to your garage, so making an extra connection there doesn't seem that complicated.
Perhaps pantries aren‘t that common anymore in Germany. But I remember that almost every house build in the fifties in the neighborhood where I lived had at least a small pantry. We had a freezer in it and sometimes sausages were hanging from the ceiling. To be fair, the house of my grandparents that was also built in the fifties didn‘t have a pantry. They had their storage mainly in the basement.
I agree, back in those days most houses and even apartements had small pantries. The house where I grew up had one, my grandparents also had one in their 4 rooms appartement and most of my parents friends did. That was in the 60ies. In Rhineland Palatinate we called them "Steuzchen". Then, in the middle of the 70ies those "Haushaltsschränke" became fashionable. Mostly sort of "inbuilt cabinets" in the hallway, big enough to put the vacuum cleaner or cleaning kits in, and add some canned food, treats or beverages. I'd still prefer the pantries but..... well.... seems they are gone forever.
My grandmother had a pantry, and we have one as well.
Back then people also had a lot less stuff.
While I'm from the Netherlands we have much similarities with building here. For me I wanted to change and add like 12 electric outlets and while it being my first home I was on budget and per outlet it would cost me like €150 if it was done by the builder, I ended up doing the Labour etc. myself afterward cutting in the concrete and putting in new pvc ducts, new cables etc. and in the end besides my own time it did cost me like €150 in materials. I did more projects myself on my home and learned many things, I also would do some different if building a second time. If you want to change the garage door, you could also offset the costs for a new one by selling your current door 2nd hand to someone else and this way it also won't be wasteful.
Doing it yourself is also a very good excuse to buy expensive power tools.
In German houses the cellars are often used as storage rooms or extra pantries. Even if my grandparents put in a pantry into their kitchen, too. But we had a room in the cellar in which we had a shelf with all the glasses of fruits and jellies my Granny cooked in to preserve for the winter and the big freezer. And how somebody else pointed out in the commentaries - the more storage possibility you have the more things you put in that you might not ever use again - there is never enough storage... What I would change first would be to alter the electrical system around your garage. Working with different extension cord and multiple sockets actually can be dangerous, too - as people tend to "overload" that. And maybe put gummi bumpers outside onto your garage door. Might prevent some damage.
It is naturally cold there. My grand dad had to pantry cellars. One for potatoes and the other for pickled vegetables and conserved fruit and a few sausages. He lived through two wars and two inflation. After his wife died and he came over to eat for lunch his first question afterwards was: "what is on the menu tomorrow?" Even though things were well, he needed reassurance for the food.
About the wooden bannister: use different kinds of wood in your interior and/or decorations. This way you are free to add whatever in wooden form and it just looks intentionally chaotic. We did that with our house because we could not possibly pay for the good stuff all throughout. And we had to incorporate a lot of used furniture because new was out of the question. Everything is now wooden or white and it makes for a good warm mix although everything is different.
and if you favour an eclectic style with antiques, you´ll have different woods for sure, anyway! just like the classy centuries old mansions...
Sometimes one gets clinging to certain ideas which appeasr logical. Like have the same wood for floor and countertop, or bannister in this case. But if you had really achieved doing it you might have felt it being wrong. Like: who would walk on the bannister because it is the same would put in to walk on? So different purpose, different location might be a better choice. And because you cannot experience the looks of your thought-to-be-better match it is hard to judge whether it would really look nicer. Just as thinking about an ex-bf or ex-gf and what would it have been like to marry them instead of your current spouse.
A little chaos when it comes to types of wood and colours feels quite good to me. Homes where the colours all perfectly matched always felt too sterile to me.😅
When you build a new house in Germany, you'll have to monitor what the guys on the construction site are doing almost every single day. Unless you hire someone who does this for you. Sometimes they make mistakes and don't tell you. And often they even try to hide it from you.
I guess, I told you in an earlier video: Remember that you build your first house for your enemy, the second house for your friend and the third house will be for yourself...😂
Congratulations on building and furnishing a beautiful home for your American family in Germany. As an American also living in Germany, I have a sense of just how huge an undertaking this was! Gut gemacht!! I enjoy your channel and look forward to following your Black Forest family adventures. May you and your boys have years of happiness and good health in your new home.
As someone who has been building a home and moved in half a year ago, I can definitely second to plan everything with furniture in mind. And at the same time being flexible to change things later. Regarding the project management, as you bought from a Bauträger, the communication should run through your general contractor. However, it seems that many are saving on project management, resulting in bad communication. I had similar issues. If I was to build again, I would probably avoid going with a general contractor in the first place and hire an architect to both design and manage the project. While this is actually adding more communication going through the owner, it ensures that one is in the loop at all times.
But overall, it seems you nailed to pretty good for the first try. As they say here...das erste Haus für den Feind, das zweite für den Freund, das dritte für einen selbst (the first one for your enemy, the second for your friend, the third for yourself)
Regarding the garage door, you can do a very German thing and put up a sign "Tor öffnet automatisch. Nicht im Schwenkbereich aufhalten!"
I'm afraid that doesn't work.
- there is always a project management. BUT they are part of the developer team and in the project triangle they always tend to time and price rarely quality.
- IMHO it would be better to hire an engineer separate that is on your site.
- as I wrote on top, building your home "yourself" result in higher prices.
Sure that works. The concept is called "Einzelvergabe" (individual order). In Germany, is very common that the town will develop the land and then sell it directly to families, who are then free to choose whatever general contractor they want or do individual orders. That model is also more tax efficient as the family will pay the land buyers tax only on the value of the land but not the home on it. The other model is called "Bauträger" which is a general contractor that also owns the land. That is common for row houses and duplexes in urban areas and of course apartments. But that model is very uncommon for detached single family homes
@@foobar9220 On one side you are right
on the other side: this will be significant more expensive than buying a house from a development.
Advice for the shelf underneath the staircase, drawers! The full extension kind! You will hate getting on your knees just to get to the thing you'll use all the time.
For the garage, it’s recommend to have a sub distribution, e.g. a separate set of breaker switches , it’s always expanding
Congratulations on your home that you truly can call your own!
No one has enough closets or electrical outlets. When I built our retirement home 4 years ago, I drew the plans with the furniture shown which greatly helped with placement of electrical fixtures, lighting & outlets.
I have one hose bib in the back because there are no bathrooms or kitchens in the front. Running another line didn't make sense when I could just buy a longer hose, BUT I forgot that I have to run around the house to turn the water on & off.
Next to our kitchen is a small room with boiler, well pump, utility sink & electrical panel. I oversized it enough to add shelving to double as a pantry. But, my wife constantly leaves that door open, LOL.
I hired a construction manager, not a general contractor, and I recommend that path. Full disclosure, I am an engineer and comfortable with all the moving parts of building.
Go ahead and change that garage door, but hire a professional. Those springs required for that type can kill. And, if it really bothers you, change the stair railing. There isn't that much of it, but I don't think I would notice.
I can totally relate with the issue of the electricity sockets. I renovated a timber-framed house a few years ago and had them redo the whole electrical installation (it was a huge mess!) because the old one was no longer safe to use. The sockets were placed according to where I was planning to put my furniture. And then I realised that it made much more sense to put the TV in a different corner of the living room and the bed on the opposite side of the bedroom…
I’ve lived in an apartments with pantries for the last 15 years and I love a pantry in my kitchen! I just moved and was so happy that my new apartment has a pantry as well 😍Old apartment buildings in Germany (pre WWII) often have them.
With electric outlets I’ve heard so many people say : when you think you planned enough outlets , just double the number 😅 unfortunately I can’t do that in my apartment so I have to many extension cords.
When we built our house a friend told me to plan as many plugs I can think of and than double it. That's what I nearly did and they are just enough now.
Maybe you could replace the single outlets - sockets in the garage with double or tripple outlets - sockets (Steckdose 2-fach oder 3-fach) that fit into the existing flush mount box (tiefe Schalterdose) in the wall. I am afraid the series of your light switches and sockets probably will not have double or tripple outlet - sockets in its collection. Your technical room is next to your front door that makes its easy to install a water pipe for a water connection on the front of your house to wash your bikes. You surely need a heavy duty power drill with and a long heavy duty stone drill.
Hello Ashton, hello Jonathan happy Sunday!
Congratulations to your one year anniversiry!
Now after you learned your lessons when building your home, when planning your next home everything should run really smooth! 😀 Best regards Ralf P.S. Really like the bloopers
Hi Ralf! Thank you and happy Sunday to you as well. This was certainly a fun video to make and I'm glad you enjoyed it.
I always like your Videos and really appreciate the time and efforts you put in this contents. Best regards Ralf
Bicycle cleaning tip - I got a plastic garden pump pressure strayer, Tukan 5L Drunksprühgerät, that I put by the front door to spray my bike down before bringing inside. As I only have hose on otherside. Or, put in my car to spray off my MTB before putting it in back of car.
I can so relate to the electrical sockets missing in places where you need them...
You can never have enough... Especially outdoors.
A little trick for the right placement of you car in the garage:
Hang a tennis ball (or baseball?) on a string from the garage ceiling.
Place the ball in such a way that it slightly taps your car's windscreen when your car is in the perfect position.
I'm currently building in Mexico. Luckily, I caught the lack of electrical outlets early enough to be able to add more. I really suggest to anyone building to plan out the layout of the room/furniture. It will help you know how many and where you want the outlets. They were going to put my bathroom outlet at the door with the light switch instead of by the vanity. There wasn't going to be an outlet at all on the wall where I want my desk to go. It's super easy to overlook little things that make a big difference, like forgetting about outdoor lighting so you can have a porch light of some sort. Now I'm going to be watching them like a hawk to make sure my overhead lights are centered in the room and aligned with each other and that my tv outlet is in the middle of the wall. As always, solid content on this channel!
Hi, for the wood on the banister, why don't you make just a shell on top and side of it with the same wood used for the floor. It will become a little ticker but it will match the floor. Bye Marco
A good idea! That could be a great future house project.
One thing I hadn't thought about before with the wiring for fans, is that if you are putting in the wiring, you can put in a switch for the light part of the fan, and another switch for the fan part, which is very nice, so you can turn the light off and on at the switch and keep the fan on without the pull chain on the fan
Always remember: it is not so important how many sockets a house has, but what spirit prevails in this house!
Great video again and just funny some high level "mimimiii" when it comes to the bannisters😂. But seriously, I can't almost wait for your videos coming out each 2nd Sunday. Wish you a wonderful Sunday in the beautiful Black Forest🤗
I just sent this to a friend in Canada. They are building houses. I just pointed out to him, how the "cabinet", next to the kitchen could possibly be larger than the kitchen itself. To store all those utensils. Have them close. But: out of the fumes, that a kitchen always produces. Plus room to store things.
I could have done this about a garage. That: thinking ahead is a massive point: the "what will the future bring?" thing can be sooo overwhelming!
Great content, as always!
Ther was a series on german german tv, decades ago: "Einmal im Leben" = once in a lifetime. About building a house. I was a kid, when it was on tv. Maybe you can find some of it. It surely was great!
Gruß aus Tangstedt!
Just love you two! Awesome stuff!!!!
I had a pantry in my apartment in Hanau. I loved it. They are rare because it is taxed per room so it added a tax expense
It's easy to run conduit on the ceiling or walls and put in more electric outlets. I prefer conduit over hidden in the wall utilities for safety and putting in more outlets.
Usually, German houses have a basement. I guess due to the landscape of yours, there was no option for a basement for storage. Also, use the mechanical room for a water outlet so you only have to walk out the garage with that hose. For electrical outlets in the garage, use tubes low to the ground to get cables through to create more outlets around. Hope that helps. Best, Martin
Congrats on building your house 🙂
As you were talking about cleaning your car (at home) ... I think you would also need an Ölabscheider (Oil Separator) in order to be allowed to do so.
Also with regards to storage space ... I totally agree, you can never have enough of this 😁
Our house is also built into a hill and the back is partially underground. When we moved in there was only one outdoor tap but fortunately it was in the front of the house. It also helped that we had a bathroom and laundryroom in the basement so retro-fitting watering systems and a tap in the garage was not difficult. We did not do everything at once and the fact that the yard has very little paving made installation easier. We now have four hoses, an automatic system for the garden, a fountain and a fishpond.
I want to be a "I can build my own shelf" kind of person in the future 😂 right now I even have a hard time putting IKEA things together
I really envy you for your house. My girlfriend and I planned to build a house a few months ago and now dismissed the idea completely due to exploding building costs. The cheapest offer was about 480k euros for the house without a plot to build on. And we also had to calculate extras like an elevator for me and my wheelchair. An offer with all costs included was shoirt above a million euros... I'm still amazed how you managed to build your home :D
Nice video! Also it's good to look forward and change things to the better. Storage is really one of the biggest things needed. Sometimes I use cad for building furniture or other stuff myself.
You are so clean and organized with everything that a glimpse of an untidy pantry adds a charming little detail
There are Garage doors that don't move out but still tilt up to the ceiling in one piece. But of course it takes up more space in the garage...
Well, they could have asked you.
You might have chosen a segmented one like you said. That takes up the least amount of space.
Just went through a reno on our Toronto downtown condo...I would agree that when a contractor is in situ and likes you...and he suggests upgrades...as in..." I can do mouldings if you want while we're here but it will cost you X...or..."I've (builder guy) got some marble that might cost you a bit more but it's laying round our shop and we can give you a discount" ...do not hesitate...grab it...get him drunk...he will change your life...(note: our poor builder guy told us that 'I don't want to tell you how much I lost on your condo '... respect these guys...they are gold...some of the greatest people you will ever meet...
Gday BFF, great to see you. You have a beautiful home, very tastefully decorated and great colour choices . Most people wait a lifetime to achieve such a quality home but I do understand those irritations you have identified . I’ve been changing small details of my home ever since I’ve been here. I imagine most people’s homes are a work in progress as colours and fashions change so do our homes. Congratulations on your first year in your new home, I’m sure you’ll will create many special memories in your home. 🎉❤
I have lived in a british flat for 30 years so have internal plaster board walls but cement walks i had to get an electrician to update an electricial box ,while checking he pointed out places where he could put in a new outlet. what a difference it has made ,no swapping out appliances. A fresh eye made such a change
Regarding a project manager: We built here in Germany this year too and 10 other families in our street with us and I have to say that there are grave differences between the different house building companies.
Our building company has provided us with a project manager that took care of these little things and organized all contractors for us, so we had do literally nothing during the building phase.
But other families in our street faced the same problems you described in your video.
One Family even had to coordinate all sub-contractors by themselves - the house building company was not doing anything but providing the materials (i guess) after the initial planning phase. Even a window was built too low, so that the kitchen had to be replanned.
Moin Black Forest Family,
maybe get a brightly colored curtain for your pantry? It doesn't have to reach all the way down to the floor, so Saugi can still do his job.
Wish you a nice sunday and have a nice week.
There are adapters for a outside water tap that split the tap into two. You could take one of these, take another hose (put locks on both hoses), and just lower one of the hoses down to the driveway. This way, you'd have accessible water down there.
I'd personally recommend just taping a warning onto the garage door, that it swings outwards when it opens, that way you're covered when it happens.
Congrats on hitting 80 K subscribers. Great work.
Thank you!! ❤️
You can set a marker, maybe a plant, to show the angle (how much it comes out) of the garage door. Perhaps a soft or foam line placed on the bottom of the garage door itself would be very good. So it would not do scratches on the surface of a car, when opening.
Wera and Knipex. A man appreciates good quality tools 😉👍
Have missed your informative Blogs. Hope your ALL doing well.❤
We are, thank you! Hope you are having a nice weekend.
Some very good advice in here.
About the missing faucet in front of your house. Iirc your utility room is right in the front next to your entrance and also houses the boiler? If that's the case, have you thought of asking a plumber to get a citation on how much it would cost to add a faucet outside, or even better, inside the garage? Better, imho, because then you can use it all year round and don't have to worry about frozen pipes and you can just run your hose out through the garage door.
Even if you decide it's too expensive right now, then at least you have an option for when it annoys you too much or you have some extra funds available.
We live in Berlin and own a flat here... After selling our old flat, we bought a new one, had it gutted and remodeled - one of the first things we told the contractor was "more sockets!" -- so we literally have more sockets now - also for cable and internet in every room...
When I bought my 4-room apartment, the first thing I did was to add another 80+ more power outlets as the apartment had the minimum amount installed.
The US certainly has both types of garage doors too. Our garage door in America is one piece, because it is insulated and because it is more secure when locked, than the other type. I recall there are places in Germany where it is not allowed to wash your car at home and that it must be done at a designated car washing place.
5:40 Elecrical outlets. I also have learned that lesson. Every time I have designed the location of outlets in a newly built or renovated home there was a need for more outlets or at different places. One method is to replace single in-the-wall outlets by double on.the-wall outlets. But still I needed extension cords.
Its realy a House build with high standarts and supersolid!Its a joy to see a house like this!
When my house was built, I literally drove there every day before I went to work to check if everything is as I wanted it to be. Nevertheless, there will always be something you hadn't thought about. It's unavoidable in my opinion. For example, I regret not having installed floor heating in the whole house but only in the living room and the bathroom.
I can completely understand. We kept trying to find "excuses" to go "visit the house" each weekend. Problem was, we didn't own a car then and the new house is about 20-25 km away. So we tried to make use of every nice weekend we had and bike out to the construction site.
Congrats to my lovely Black Forest Family 🥂🍻🍰☕️💐
Thank you Arno! ♥️♥️
We live in a rented house. But I would totally change the position of the TV and Internet Outlets. They just aren't were you would need them. Also our bathroom is very big, but you don't have one wall to put a cupboard in front of. All the things (sink, shower, bathtub, ...) are splattered all over the wall with not enough space for a cupboard in beetween. We are thinking of putting one in the middle of the room, because there is enough space too walk around still.
We use curtains to separate rooms and areas. They help with heating and temperature as well.
You are truly a Black Forest family because you have Tannenzäpfle! 👍
They have a lot of good drinks, but their alcohol free Radler is our FAVORITE.
My favorite is the original all the others came out after I left Germany, so I don’t really know them. Prost!
Cheers 🍻🍻🍻
@@TypeAshtonWaldhaus 🍻 ist auch lecker
Ok, your House is so nice! Wow wow wow
Two outlets WTF? I had contest with my buddy for garage outlets, I won with 27. I built the house myself. Lite Fix placement is very important. 😝
In the garage, you can put cables and socket on the wall, surface mounted. In other parts of home it's hidden, but this is technical room.
I actually thought yesterday, didn't u say u want tomake a second video bout your house, now it's here, hoped for that cause im very interested in this topic
you have the heating system nearby the garage so there should be a cold water pipe which could be used to be layed thru the wall to the garage ending in a water tap.
Also the electrical distribution is in the technicroom so it's a hours work to expand it to some more outlets build onto the wall in the garage with calbe ducts
as an electrician and house owner i have surprisingly only very few outlets. the thing is to know where to put outlets and not randomly as many as possible in every corner. the good thing is, with the modular system for electrical outlets (european style outlets) you can "easily" extend your outlets up to 5 (the maximum frame size is for 5 outlets). the downside is the concrete wall. drilling the holes for the outlets without messing up the wall so that the frame can cover everything is not that easy as a dry wall or brick wall.
Much awaited video! Thank you for making this.
Also, how is the little one? Hope all is well.
Thank you! We are all doing great. It's hard to believe Theo is almost 2 months old now. 🥺
2:00 Pantry, I actually lived in two older appartments that had a pantry. It was a leftover from the time people didn't have fridges. Or it was not as ubiquitous as today. More looked at as a luxury item like AC today. These were closets built next to the outer wall so they could benefit from colder temperatures in winter.
So the idea of a pantry went away with fridges becoming an item in 100% of households in the 50's.
Afterwards you always find out where you could have done something better. You're always smarter afterwards, as the saying goes.
Very enjoyable video. Let me say this, I too, am a trained engineer, also a project engineer/project manager. I have bought several houses over the years in the states and also in Europe. The mistakes (?) you spoke of are normal for any 1st time home buyer/ builder. My last project was a new home here in the US, and still found things that fell through the cracks. Glad you are sort of happy and proud of your home. That is the important part. May I suggest the next time start out with a punch list and milestone list and go from there. This is what I have done, and as I said there is always something new that falls through the cracks.
Guys put a marker (eg garden decor) where the garage door extends to.. then don't reverse or park beyond that point. I have a marker in my car port so i don't reverse back to far which would stop me from being able to open the boot without hiting the back wall of the car port. (We have those garage doors in the UK. I have never heard of anyone hiting their car with the door).
Ps. You are not allowed to wash your car in Germany because the dirty water would go into the ground water. You have to go to a designated car wash facility.
With MY house, which I designed myself... I would have added an office nook for a desk and computer. I designed the house in 1993, and built it in 1995, right when the internet was just in it's infancy, and I didn't design any place for a desktop computer to reside. I didn't think I would ever own a computer (Actaully didn't own one until 2001) I ended up running cable under the house, and putting on one side of the great room with a recliner as the chair for it, where the electric piano used to be.
For the pantry, i would Put a curtain in Front. So it's closed of whitout being closed. So the toddler can get in and Out :).
In my house in Germany I experienced the same problem with electrical outlets. They were always too few and awkwardly placed. I especially disliked the placement on many of them one meter off the floor and co-located with the light switches near the doors. This was esthetically not pleasing when you plugged things in and awkward when you had to plug something in having the cord go down the wall and over to the item. Also European outlets tend to be single not "duplex" like in the US. Altogether this means that you end up with a lot of extension cords with big multi outlet boxes on the end that are difficult to keep out of the way. My outside water access was also like yours with one faucet in the back of the house. I was more fortunate because my driveway was at the side of the house (between the houses) and went all the way to the back yard, but like you I had to run a long hose to the front when I needed water there. One reason for this is that the "frost-proof" faucets, common in the US, like you have were not available in Germany. This required a separate valve in the heated spaces to shut off the water in the winter to prevent a frozen, and possibly a burst, pipe in the winter. This was not good to have in a living room/bedroom wall. One thing you did not mention is how the electrical cables are installed in German or most European homes with masonry walls. It is through a plastic tube that is channeled into the masonry that provides a channel for the wires. Most times these do not run in a straight line and are only a centimeter or two below the surface. This can make hanging a picture, shelf or TV a real adventure (don't ask how I know). Closets, or your pantry, are very uncommon because of taxes. Closets were considered a room, no matter how small. So, your three bedroom house (with a closet in each) suddenly was taxed as a six bedroom. Putting in closets at the time of construction was inexpensive initially, but paying an additional DM100 per year per closet was not. Good video and food for though no matter where you are building a house. Keep up the good work!
There's actually a DIN regulation where wires can be placed in the walls. It's in the corners of a room, below light switches and in the lower 20cm of a wall.
Unfortunately older houses have just wires running somewhere, before the electeicians have agreed on this standard
And here another gernan lesson for advanced students: In germany you say "Das erste Haus baust du für deinen Feind, das zweite für deinen Freund und das dritte für dich selbst."
An important life lesson, for sure.
It is a very lovely home built with love, care, and attention. I wish our house was such a home. We're still searching.
building / planning a house right now! great tip! but I know a lot of people that say you need to build like 3 houses until you get it right. apparently a polish saying goes like this: first house for your enemy, second for your friend, third for yourself. something like that :-).
There is a German saying, in order to be able to build a house, you need to have build a house previously. Or something like that. True words.
"Experience is something you acquire immediately after the moment you needed it the most" - Murphy
where there is 1 socket, it can easily be expanded to up to 5 sockets. The larger plate with 5 sockets hides the necessary work. But ask the electrician so you don't drill into any wires.
Ihr könnt mit recht sehr stolz sein auf das was ihr erreicht habt. Ein super schönes Haus und ihr seit eine mega sympathische Familie.
Deutschland kann froh sein, Einwanderer wie euch zu haben.
You can be very proud of what you made! A very beautiful house and you were such a nice family.
Germany can be very happy that immigrants like you came here.
Working in Facility Management, i often notice, that people calculate the costs rather as the up front costs, than the total costs over time. and that often designs are used, which look great, inccure little costs up front, but later turn out to be a major headache.
I always tell people, to ask carefully about amortisation, but mainly also about service requirements of anything that goes into a house (later part is often neglected).
Even if you end up being able to do it yourself, it's still time you have to sacrifice and time is money.
You can't really tell, if you got a good home, unless you spent at least 10 years in living in it.
The one other thing you have to take into account these days: double any drainage capacity for rainwater. Having to deal all the time with facilities getting flooded by ever stronger thunderstorms, i would recommend to have significant reserves in this area (having to upgrade later is really expensive).
Dad is very proud of his shelf!
But the look of Ashton .... 🤣
12:00 That's the normal version in Germany too (at least here in Hessen)
You could do a self closing sliding door on the storage room or a automatic door closer hinge,
This video was very timely and helpful. We are building a house in The Netherlands (2 km from German border) We're about 1/2 way through construction. We are about to meet with general contractor and electrician to discuss placement of light switches and fixtures. We specified water connection in back of house --- but didn't think about the front - but now we will ask about it. Thanks you guys! Update: as result of your video…we asked builder of our house to add water to front of house AND add more electric outlets in the garage. Thanks
just about to have our new home in NL delivered. When I saw the water connection on the front of the house --- I thought of you guys. It would have otherwise been a miss. Not to mention the electrical outlet we added in the garage. Thanks again!🙂
I used to have a curtain in front of my pantry. That provides an easy access but I still did not loose the ability to chose the most utilitarian shelf to maximize my room to store foods and stuff. 😃
Hallo ihr Lieben…. Das wesentliche ist doch alles so wunderbar geworden… Well Done 🎉👌ihr könnt so stolz drauf sein was ihr geschafft habt. Lg aus dem Sauerland 🌲⛰️🌲
put a decorative post at side of driveway to mark you cars location... or run small bump across width of driveway... or hook up an audible alarm that is tripped by motion sensor.. lol wow.. there's some options..... or just buy new one ( you can sell the one you take out) ,, you know you want to!
You always learn from mistakes, but still you made a good job. Well done.
Planning the amount and placement of electrical outlets and the lighting plan are actually the most difficult things, and they coincide very much with the furniture, kitchen design and other interior aspects.
As I found out myself you can't start early enough with the planning of your interior, as you will change things multiple times. After you finished you would still have done things different but if you had such a thorough think over proces you probably will have less regrets about minor mistakes you made.
As for a water hose at the front of the house I think the easiest fix is to place a tap and hose reel in the technics room, from there you can run the hose quickly out trough the garage.
I'm surprised that your builder still used the tilting garage door, sectional doors are much more common these days and are much more practical. They don't need space to open and you can open them just a few inches to ventilate the garage while avoiding people getting in to take things away.